Abstract Detail

Anatomy and Morphology

Ahl, Louise [1], Mravec, Jozef [2], Jørgensen, Bodil [3], Willats, William [4], Grace, Olwen [5], Rønsted, Nina [1].

Analyses of Aloe polysaccharides using carbohydrate microarray profiling.

As the popularity of Aloe vera extracts continues to rise, a desire to fully understand the individual polymer components of the leaf mesophyll, their relation to one another and the effects they have on the human body are increasing. Polysaccharides present in the leaf mesophyll have been identified as the components responsible for the biological activities of Aloe vera, and they have been widely studied in the past decades. However, the commonly used methods do not provide the desired platform to conduct large comparative studies of polysaccharide compositions as most of them require a complete or near-complete fractionation of the polymers. The objective for this study was to assess whether carbohydrate microarrays could be used for the high-throughput analysis of cell wall polysaccharides in Aloe leaf mesophyll. We used Comprehensive Microarray Polymer Profiling (CoMPP) to investigate the polysaccharide compositions. This method combines the high-throughput capacity of microarray technology with the specificity of molecular probes. Our findings showed that CoMPP can successfully be used for high-throughput screening of Aloe leaf mesophyll tissue. Nearly 100 species of Aloe and closely related genera were analysed and a clear difference in the polysaccharide compositions of the mesophyll tissues was seen. These data show that the polysaccharides vary between species, and that true species of Aloe differ from segregate genera.

1 - University of Copenhagen, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Copenhagen, Denmark
2 - University of Copenhagen, Section for Plant Glycobiology, Thorvaldsensvej 40, Frederiksberg C, 1871, Denmark
3 - University of Copenhagen
4 - University of Newcastle
5 - Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

Keywords:
Aloe
Polysaccharides
Succulent tissue
CoMPP.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 13, Anatomy and Morphology II
Location: 113/Mayo Civic Center
Date: Monday, July 23rd, 2018
Time: 2:00 PM
Number: 13003
Abstract ID:167
Candidate for Awards:None