ABSTRACT
Monosaccharides and Their Derivatives Monosaccharides are simple sugars (Sturgeon, 1990) consisting of two families, the aldoses (Fig. 4.1) and the ketoses (Fig. 4.2) distinguished by the position of carbonyl oxygen (Preiss, 1980; Churms, 1982; Loewus and Tanner, 1982; Collins, 1987; Binkley, 1988; El Kadem, 1988; Kennedy, 1988; Thiem, 1990; Bols, 1996; Dashek, 1997; Lehman, 1998; Robyt, 1998). Various monosaccharide derivatives (Table 4.1) possess marked biological significances (Cordy, 1980; Lehman, 1998). Oligosaccharides Oligosaccharides (Kandler and Hopf, 1980; Avigad, 1982, 1990) are carbohydrates composed of two to ten monosaccharides joined in glycosidic linkage (Fig. 4.3). Table 4.2 presents some Oligosaccharides commonly found in plants.
