An international team of scientists led by the University of Adelaide discovered a new complex carbohydrate in the moss that could be used for health or other purposes. The new polysaccharide is similar to the beta-glucan useful for the stomach and health, which is found in oats and other cereals. The polysaccharide is a complex carbohydrate, consisting of sugar molecules. A group of scientists led by Professor Rachel Burton studied the evolutionary history of beta-glucan when she made this discovery. The work was published in The Plant Cell.
Beta-glucan, another polysaccharide, is a dietary fiber, also known as fiber, which has many advantages for nutrition. It is plentiful in cereals such as oats and barley, but in mosses have not yet been found, despite the fact that these plants have similar genes.
The researchers took one of these genes from the moss to see if this could lead to the production of beta-glucan.
"We discovered a new polysaccharide consisting of sugars, glucose and arabinose, and not just glucose, as in beta glucan," says Professor Burton. "We named it arabinoglucan and believe that the connection of two different sugars to each other makes it structurally similar to beta-glucan. For all the moss we will not say, but the new polysaccharide has great potential. "
Professor Burton says that although the function of arabinoglucane is not yet known, it can have properties that can be used in medicine and industry. Cellulose, for example, a known polysaccharide, is used in the production of paper and cotton, and xylans are used as food additives or for the creation of medicines.
"This discovery suggests how many other polysaccharides contain plants we do not yet know about," Professor Burton asks. "We do not know how many, because we do not always have the opportunity to observe them. We need new tools for this. "
The article is based on materials .
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