What the fungus?
Throughout the world and various taxa, there is a chemical compound that forms the structure, quite literally the "backbones" of some spineless creatures, that is common from crustaceans to parasitic microbes to fungi of all kinds: it is called Chitin. Also known as N-acetylglucosamine, this polysaccharide makes up invertebrate exoskeletons and fungal cell walls. It is so prominent in the natural world that it is only second in abundance to cellulose for global biopolymers. I, personally, have a soft spot for fungus so that's what I focused my research on for this post and I thought I would include some photos of the more attractive, under-appreciated specimens. Enlightened about excitin' Chitin
Chitin is an extremely interesting compound. Not only is it so abundant, but it is also crazy strong (it's a structural component of so many organisms for a reason!). If you think about it, mushrooms need a pretty strong cell wall to hold up the bulbous caps that stand on such thin stalks, or the shelf fungi that hold horizontally out from trees. Some fungi look completely improbably in their abilities to stand on such delicate looking bases.
So, how do they do it? Chitin is a special biopolymer that folds into hydrogen-bonded anti-parallel strands to form a material that is, weight-by-weight, stronger than bone or steel. The actual chemical structure involves a repeating pattern of substituted oxacyclohexanes that each have several chiral centers each. In fact, as seen to the left, each carbon that makes up the oxacyclohexane is an asymmetric center. Chitin appears naturally in two main forms: alpha and beta. The two can be distinguished easily using X-ray diffraction and NMR spectroscopy techniques. Research on the compounds is ongoing, considering its abundance and the limited knowledge available on its long-term effects on the body, etc.
If
you want to see some really cool examples of species, check these out:
Sources:Lenardon, MD, CA Monroe, NAR Gow. 2010. Chitin synthesis and fungal pathogenesis. Current Opinion in Microbiology [Internet]. [Cited 2014 Oct 31] 13(4):416-423. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2923753/
Rinaudo, M. 2006. Chitin and chitosan: properties and applications. Progress in Polymer Science [Internet]. [Cited 2014 Oct 31] 31(7): 603-632. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079670006000530
Photos only:
http://lilyandscooter.com/2012/02/funky-funghi/
http://harvestheart.tumblr.com/post/383115534
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