My professor tells us that carbohydrate is an important part of phospholipid, but phospholipid is composed of Choline, Phosphate, Glycerol and two Fattyacid, and I don't think even one of them is carbohydrate.
What's wrong with my statements?
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Sign up to join this communityMy professor tells us that carbohydrate is an important part of phospholipid, but phospholipid is composed of Choline, Phosphate, Glycerol and two Fattyacid, and I don't think even one of them is carbohydrate.
What's wrong with my statements?
Your thinking is correct based on typical carbohydrates, but glycerol, the backbone of the phospholipid, is a 3-carbon carbohydrate that is usually derived from glucose. It is not a sugar, but it does fall into the general class of polyols (aka sugar alcohols) that are a type of carbohydrate.
A carbohydrate definitely is an important structural part of the phospholipid, but your instructor probably should have been more clear in describing why that is the case; I can definitely understand your confusion here.
There's nothing wrong in your statements! Maybe your professor was talking about glycolipids, that are lipids (also phospholipids) with a carbohydrate attached; they can be found on the outer surface of all eukaryotic cell membranes. They are important because they work as a recognition site for specific chemicals or for antibodies.