1. Sucrose commonly known as table sugar is the most abundant disaccharide. It is obtained mainly from juice of sugar cane and sugar beets. Insects such as honey bees have the enzyme mvetase that catalyses the hydrolysis of sucrose into glucose and fructose mixture.
2. Honey is primarily a mixture of glucose, fructose and sucrose. On hydrolysis sucrose yields equal amount of glucose and fructose units.
3. Sucrose (+66.6°) and glucose (52.5°) are dextrorotatory compounds while fructose is levo rotatory (- 92.4°)
4. During hydrolysis of sucrose the optical rotation of the reaction mixture changes from dextro to levo. Hence sucrose is also as invert sugar.
5. Structure:
In sucrose C1 of α – D glucose is joined to C2 of D – Fructose. The glycosidic bond thus formed is called α, 1, 2 – glycosidic bond. Since both the carbonyl carbons are involved in the glycosidic bonding, sucrose is a non – reducing sugar.
