Advance in Raffinose Family Oligosaccharides Metabolism and the Key Enzymes in Plants

Raffinose family oligosaccharides(RFOS) metabolism is closely related with plant development,stress,acquisition of desiccation tolerance in seeds,seeds viability and so on.The biosynthesis of raffinose,the first member of the series,proceeds by transfer a galactosyl unit to suc1rose.Then stachyose and verbascose,the next higher RFOS,are synthesized.In plant,the enzymes of RFO,such as galactinol synthase,myo inositol-1-phosphate synthase,raffinose synthase and stachyose synthase,are linked with the RFO pathway.This review focuses on the RFO metabolism and biochemistry and molecular biology of the key enzymes,and provides research progress in study on raffinose family oligosaccharides.