Aldose

An aldose is a monosaccharide whose open-chain form contains an aldehyde group. In water, it commonly exists in cyclic forms produced when that group reacts with a hydroxyl group.

Monosaccharide: A carbohydrate consisting of a single sugar unit that cannot be hydrolyzed into simpler carbohydrates. Aldoses are one structural class of monosaccharide.
Hemiacetal: A functional group in which one carbon bears both a hydroxyl group and an alkoxy group. Aldose ring closure creates a cyclic hemiacetal.
Glucose: A six-carbon aldohexose and a major source of energy in living organisms. Glucose is the best-known aldose and a central cellular fuel.
Reducing sugar: A sugar that can donate electrons to a suitable oxidizing agent, often through an accessible carbonyl form. Most aldoses act as reducing sugars because their rings can open to aldehydes.
Aldehyde: An organic functional group with a carbonyl carbon bonded to a hydrogen atom. This is the defining functional group in an aldose’s open-chain form.
Anomer: One of two cyclic sugar stereoisomers that differ only at the anomeric carbon. Cyclization of an aldose creates distinct alpha and beta anomers.
Ribose: A five-carbon aldopentose found in RNA and several cellular cofactors. Ribose shows how an aldose forms the sugar backbone of RNA.
Benedict's test: A chemical assay that detects reducing sugars by reducing copper(II) ions to copper(I) oxide. The open-chain aldehyde form of an aldose can produce the test’s color change.
Ketose: A monosaccharide whose open-chain form contains a ketone group. Ketoses differ from aldoses in the position and type of their carbonyl group.
Mutarotation: A change in optical rotation as sugar anomers interconvert in solution. Aldose rings open and close, allowing their anomers to interconvert.

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