Trehalose

A non-reducing disaccharide of two glucose units, used by many organisms as a stress protectant and energy store.

Vitrification: Solidification of a solution into an amorphous glass without crystallization, halting molecular motion. Dried trehalose solutions form a glass that immobilizes and preserves cell structures.
Auguste-Pierre Dubrunfaut: French chemist who first isolated trehalose from ergot of rye in 1832. His isolation of 'mycose' began the chemistry of this sugar.
Disaccharide: A sugar formed from two monosaccharides joined by a glycosidic bond. Trehalose is a disaccharide of two glucose units in an α,α-1,1 linkage.
LYOCELL drying of platelets: Loading human platelets with trehalose so they can be dried and stored at room temperature. A leading experimental use of trehalose in dry blood product storage.
Sucrose: A glucose–fructose disaccharide, the common protective sugar in seeds and resurrection plants. Sucrose protects seeds as well as trehalose protects yeast, at far lower cost.
Water replacement hypothesis: The proposal that sugars hydrogen-bond to membranes and proteins in place of lost water molecules. The leading explanation of how trehalose stabilizes dry membranes and proteins.
Ergot: The sclerotium of the fungus Claviceps purpurea that grows on rye and other cereals. The source from which trehalose was first extracted.
Glycosidic bond: A covalent link between a sugar's anomeric carbon and another molecule's hydroxyl group. Trehalose's unusual 1,1 bond makes it non-reducing and chemically stable.
Live attenuated vaccine stabilization: Drying vaccines with trehalose so they remain viable without refrigeration. The cold chain problem trehalose glasses are meant to solve.
Glycerol: A small polyol used by freeze-tolerant organisms and as a classic cryoprotectant. Glycerol dominates cryoprotection, while trehalose dominates anhydroprotection.

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