Trehalose – properties, biosynthesis and applications
Malgorzata BUREK, Sylwia WAŚKIEWICZ, Ilona WANDZIK*, Klaudia KAMIŃSKA – Faculty of Chemistry, Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland

Please cite as: CHEMIK 2015, 69, 8, 469–476

A few decades ago it was thought that carbohydrates are just the source of energy. However, over the years it was revealed that many of them fulfill specialized biological functions. Trehalose, which was described for the first time in the 30s of the nineteenth century, turned out to be an important sugar with the ability to protect proteins during environmental stresses [1]. This discovery resulted in an increased interest in trehalose and current number of research papers mentioning this disaccharide exceeds 10 000 documents (Scopus). Although bioprotective properties of trehalose have been well known for many years, it was not obtained on a large scale for a long time due to the high costs of production. Its price has decreased enough after the development of its enzymatic manufacturing from poly- and oligosaccharides making possible to use it in various industries. In the recent years, numerous reviews on trehalose have been published describing its unique properties and applications [2 – 6], mechanisms of biosynthesis [7 – 8] as well as its production by the biotechnological methods [3, 9 – 10].

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