Analysis and Separation of Oligosaccharides

Abstract

Oligosaccharides have been widely applied in plant growth promotion and defense induction. Some research suggests that the activity of oligosaccharides is related to their constitutional monomer structure and degree of polymerization. Thus analysis and separation of oligosaccharides is essential to understand their structure–function relationships in plant science. The basic analysis and separation process is composed of two parts: separation and detection. The most common used for oligosaccharide separation is ion-exchange chromatography and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, as well as the detectors used include refractive index detector, evaporative light-scattering detector, pulsed amperometric detector, and mass spectrometers. A suitable chromatography and detector can be chosen to achieve a satisfactory analysis result according to the structure of oligosaccharide to be analyzed. This chapter mainly reviews recent progresses in the separation and analysis of the oligosaccharides as biostimulants in agriculture, including chitosan oligosaccharide, chitin oligosaccharide, alginate oligosaccharide, oligogalacturonic acid, and carrageenan oligosaccharide. A variety of chromatographic examples are given in this chapter.