Glucose are termed glucans. Glucose is produced by plants through the photosynthesis using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide and can be used by all living organisms as an energy and carbon source. However, most glucose does not occur in its free form, but in the form of its polymers, i.e. lactose, sucrose, starch and others which are energy reserve substances, and cellulose and chitin, which are components of the cell wall in plants or fungi and arthropods, respectively. These polymers are degraded to glucose during food intake by animals, fungi and bacteria using enzymes. All animals are also able to produce
UTP—glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase including the liver and the muscles. An exception is the brain, which has high levels of glycogen but low specific activity of UTP—glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase. In animal cells, UTP—glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase is found predominantly in the cytoplasm. UTP—glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase is also required for galactose metabolism in animals and microorganisms. In galactose metabolism, the enzyme galactose 1-phosphate uridylyltransferase transfers a phosphate from UDP-glucose to galactose 1-phosphate to produce UDP-galactose, which is then converted to UDP-glucose. Bacteria with defective UTP—glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase are unable to incorporate galactose into their cell walls. In this enzyme’s primary reaction, the phosphate group on glucose-1-phosphate replaces the phosphoanhydride bond