Journal of Physical Chemistry & Biophysics
Open Access

Hydrolysis

Hydrolysis hydro-, meaning 'water', and lysis, meaning is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water ruptures one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and fragmentation reactions in which water is the nucleophile.

Biological hydrolysis is the cleavage of biomolecules where a water molecule is consumed to effect the separation of a larger molecule into component parts. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis (e.g. sucrose being broken down into glucose and fructose), this is recognized as saccharification.