09809 IUPAC Gold Book - carbohydrate 10.1351/goldbook.09809 09809 current synonym: glycan 1 Monosaccharide, oligosaccharide and polysaccharide substances, as well as substances derived from a monosaccharide by reduction of the carbonyl group (alditol), by oxidation, including the oxidation of one or more terminal groups of a carboxylic acid, or by replacement of one or more hydroxy groups by a hydrogen atom, an amino group, a thiol group, or by similar heteroatomic groups. This term also includes derivatives of these of these compounds. The term carbohydrate was applied originally to monosaccharides, in recognition of the fact that their empirical composition can be expressed as \(\ce{C_{m}(H2O)_{n}}\). However, the term is now used generically in a wider sense. PAC, 2018, 90, 1121. 'Terminology of bioanalytical methods (IUPAC Recommendations 2018)' on page 1170 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2016-1120) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09809/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09809/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09809/plain Citation: 'carbohydrate' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.09809 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-18T03:52:31+00:00