They work together with enzymes in the building or break-down of other compounds. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. All living cells require some sort of energy source. Plants get their energy from light sources through photosynthesis and store this energy in the form of chemical compounds. These compounds, for example starches and sugars, are in turn used as energy source by other organisms.
Energy is bound up in sugar in the form of chemical bonds.
If ethanol alcohol is metabolized instead of glucose, as is the case for the acetobacter xylinum in Kombucha, these percentages would be different. Furthermore, in a typical anaerobic fermentation process as found in the K.T. lactic acid bacteria and yeasts, more glucose would probably be required for energy needs and less would be available for cellular material. Total 97.3 Stouthammer AH. quoted in Gottschalk, 1979. Although sugar does include oxygen atoms, the oxygen required for the bacterial respiration does not come from it or the water. It has to be provided as free oxygen O2 from the surrounding air.