Galactinol in the leaves of the resurrection plant Boea hygroscopica

The content of low molecular weight substances was analysed in leaf samples of the resurrection plant Boea hygroscopica F. Muell. submitted to dehydration. Drying treatment caused a variation in the carbohydrate pool, with a decrease of all sugars except sucrose which notably increased, becoming the prevalent one in dried leaves. Rehydration almost restored the pretreatment sugar composition. Along with more common sugars galactinol and some higher oligosaccharides of the raffinose family were detected. Their structures were assigned by NMR and GC-MS analyses after acetylation. To our knowledge, this is the first finding in resurrection plants of significant amounts of the galactosyl donor galactinol and of higher galactosyl oligosaccharides, which may have a role in restoring the pre-drying functions upon rehydration. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.