Sugar is tremendously important food since it supplies us with energy. Yet we dismiss it as “empty calories” because too much sugar without other nutrients leads to obesity, diabetes and other health disorders.

Sugar, however, also has importantstructural roles, to name a few: in our DNA; in ATP, a key molecule for drivingmetabolism; in glycoproteins such as those that determine blood groups …

… but I now wish to turn to the world of phytochemicals that have featured in precious leaves. Many of these phytochemicals are “#glycosides”, i.e., they consist of a flavonoid, terpenoid, anthoquinone or whatever, with one or more sugar molecules attached. This can profoundly affect how the phytochemicals move around inside the plant, since adding a sugar makes it much harder for the molecules to cross cell membranes. An example we have discussed before is indican, a glycoside that accumulated inside vacuoles of indigo plant cells (see Leaf 11 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/green-mountain-biotech_indigo-indican-indole-activity-6877602782204035072-II1x?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web). Using glycosidase enzymes to remove the sugar, plants can control the bioactivity of phytochemicals and their trafficking between cells and tissues.

But plants can also release intact glycosidesinto the soil and some of these may be inherently bioactive. However, others will become active only after sugar removal, by microorganisms that producetheir own enzymes. Some microbes may tolerate the released molecules, but somewhile some will poison themselves and other microbes lurking nearby, withdramatic effects on the #microbiome.

Ingested phytochemical glycosides in food or supplements are likely to become deglycosylated by stomach acids or later by microbes in the gut, again influencing microbiome composition.

Several (maybe all) of the botanicalextracts produced by Green Mountain Biotech contain glycosylated phytochemicals. When used topicallyas intended, it is the skin microorganisms that are likely to remove sugars from glycosylated phytochemicals. The glycosylation state of the phytochemicalsis expected not only to change their effects on the skin microbiome but also to affect how they penetrate and act on skin cells. This makes the issue aninteresting subject for further research.

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