L Sugar

Definition

L Sugars are a type of sugar molecule that are part of the mirror-image forms found in nature, distinguished by their spatial arrangement around asymmetric carbon atoms. In organic chemistry, they represent the left-handed configuration in a pair of stereoisomers, which is opposite to the more common D sugars found in organisms.

Related terms

Stereoisomer:

Isomers that have the same molecular formula and sequence of bonded atoms but differ in the three-dimensional orientations of their atoms.

Chirality:

A property of a molecule that indicates it has a non-superimposable mirror image, much like how left and right hands are mirror images but not identical.

D Sugar: The most common form of sugar found in nature, representing the right-handed configuration of sugar molecules as opposed to L Sugars