Prepare for the Microbial Metabolism Test. Utilize flashcards and multiple choice questions with helpful hints and detailed explanations. Ace your test with ease!

Multiple Choice

What are the smaller units called into which polymers are hydrolyzed?

Hydrolysis breaks the bonds between repeating units in a polymer by adding water, so the final products are the individual subunits called monomers. These monomers are the building blocks formed from the polymer: sugars from polysaccharides, amino acids from proteins, or nucleotides from nucleic acids. Oligomers are short chains that can result if only some bonds are cleaved, but they aren’t the complete end products of full hydrolysis. Ions aren’t the typical products of polymer hydrolysis.

Hydrolysis breaks the bonds between repeating units in a polymer by adding water, so the final products are the individual subunits called monomers. These monomers are the building blocks formed from the polymer: sugars from polysaccharides, amino acids from proteins, or nucleotides from nucleic acids. Oligomers are short chains that can result if only some bonds are cleaved, but they aren’t the complete end products of full hydrolysis. Ions aren’t the typical products of polymer hydrolysis.