Glucuronic acid

Glucuronic acid is a sugar acid formed by oxidizing glucose’s terminal carbon. It occurs in connective-tissue polysaccharides and helps the body make compounds more water-soluble for excretion.

UDP-glucuronic acid: An activated nucleotide sugar that donates glucuronic acid residues in biosynthesis and conjugation reactions. This activated form supplies glucuronic acid to transferases that attach it to other molecules.
Glucose: A six-carbon monosaccharide that serves as a major energy source and biosynthetic starting material. Glucuronic acid is produced by oxidizing glucose’s terminal carbon.
Drug metabolism: The chemical transformation of drugs by an organism, often altering their activity, solubility, and elimination. Glucuronidation is a major route through which the body metabolizes many drugs.
Galacturonic acid: A uronic acid derived from galactose and abundant in pectin, a structural polysaccharide of plant cell walls. It resembles glucuronic acid but derives from galactose rather than glucose.
Glucuronidation: A metabolic reaction that attaches glucuronic acid to a compound, often increasing its water solubility. This is the conjugation process that uses glucuronic acid to aid compound elimination.
Uronic acid: A sugar acid formed by oxidation of a monosaccharide’s terminal primary alcohol group to a carboxylic acid. Glucuronic acid is a prominent member of this sugar-acid family.
Xenobiotic metabolism: The enzymatic processing of foreign chemicals, including drugs, pollutants, and dietary compounds. Glucuronic acid conjugation helps process many foreign compounds for elimination.
Iduronic acid: A uronic acid that is a stereoisomer of glucuronic acid and occurs in several animal glycosaminoglycans. Its different configuration at one carbon changes the flexibility of glycosaminoglycans containing it.
UDP-glucuronosyltransferase: An enzyme family that transfers glucuronic acid from UDP-glucuronic acid to small molecules. These enzymes catalyze glucuronidation in the endoplasmic reticulum.
Stereochemistry: The study of the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms and its effects on molecular properties and reactions. The glucose-derived stereochemistry distinguishes glucuronic acid from other uronic acids.

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