[Carbohydrate study for 40 years]

Yakugaku Zasshi. 2009 Jun;129(6):681-98. doi: 10.1248/yakushi.129.681.
[Article in Japanese]

Abstract

This review describes the carbohydrate study and the natural product related to the glycoside chemistry. What shall the people in the field of pharmacognosy and natural products chemistry search in scene in future? Forty years before while isolating dimeric compound having naphthoquinonepyrone skeleton from the coloring material produced by the pathogen that hosted in wheat and caused rotten root disease, silica gel has to be treated with oxalic acid to reduce the absorbency before separation. However now a days, availability of reversed phase adsorbents for liquid chromatography has made the separation and isolation of complex compounds possible, easy and rapid. With the advancement of mechanical/physicochemical analytic methods, it has even been possible to isolate traces of compounds present in complex. This advancement has made it possible to determine structure of saponins and complex polysaccharides without decomposition and carry out in vitro bioassay at the same time using various cells on-line. Further, this review describes the oligosaccharide syntheses and biological activities of glycosphingolipids, focusing especially on those found in invertebrates.

Publication types

  • English Abstract
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biological Products* / chemistry
  • Carbohydrate Conformation
  • Carbohydrates*
  • Chromatography, Liquid
  • Glycosides / chemistry*
  • Glycosphingolipids
  • Invertebrates
  • Oligosaccharides / biosynthesis
  • Pharmacognosy / trends*
  • Time Factors

Substances

  • Biological Products
  • Carbohydrates
  • Glycosides
  • Glycosphingolipids
  • Oligosaccharides