Cellulose is the major component of the plant's cells tough walls. Plants will produce about one hundred billion tons in a total amount of cellulose per year. This is the most abundant organic compound on Earth!
Like starch, it is the polymer of glucose. However, you will see a difference in the glycosidic linkages in these two polymers differ. It will basically be the difference, of the slightly different ring structures for glucose. These two rings form a difference in whether the hydroxyl group, attached itself to the number 1 carbon and it will be fixed above the beta glucose or below the alpha glucose of the plane ring. The bond will orientate between the glucose subunits of starch and glycogen, which allows for the polymers to form a compact spiral.
Now on the other hand, chitin is very similar to that of cellulose, but it differs because it contains a nitrogen-containing appendage on each glucose monomer.
Chitin is purely described as leathery, but can be hardened by the addition of calcium carbonate. Chitin also provides the many cell walls of fungi, with structural support. Fungus was once originally classified as plants because they could live and grow from the soil. Now the cell walls of chitin (are not like cellulose plants). The will have hyphae instead of a root. They are heterotrophs- they cannot make their own food. They will absorb it from their surrounding instead. They are classified as their own kingdom- Eukaryotic, multicellular, therefore--they cannot be bacteria.
Cellulose and chitin are both polysaccharides that have a main function to support and protect the organism and they are both composed of monosaccharides and glucose. The cell walls of plants are mainly made or composed of cellulose. The cell walls of fungi and the arthropod's exoskeleton are mainly composed of chitin, which is composed of N-Acetyl glucosamine, a different glucose than cellulose's. The monomers of cellulose and chitin are bonded together in so much of a way, that the molecule is straight and it will be unbranched.
