Which of the following describes glucose?

Glucose is indeed best described as a monosaccharide produced through photosynthesis. This simple sugar is one of the primary products of photosynthesis, which occurs in plants when they convert sunlight into chemical energy. During this process, carbon dioxide and water are transformed into glucose, providing energy that the plant can utilize for growth and metabolism.

As a monosaccharide, glucose is a basic unit of carbohydrates, which distinguishes it from disaccharides, such as sucrose or lactose, that consist of two monosaccharides linked together. It’s also different from polysaccharides like starch or cellulose, which are made of long chains of glucose units. Finally, glucose is not an amino acid; amino acids are organic compounds that serve as the building blocks of proteins, and they play a different role in biological systems compared to sugars like glucose. Thus, option C accurately captures the essential nature of glucose.