The Identification of Sugars in Fruits by Paper Chromatography

The sugars present in 25 different fruits and fruit parts have been determined by paper chromatography. Glucose and fructose appear to be present in almost all the fruits. Sucrose is, however, absent in certain fruits like the palm kernel, white grape, purple grape, cashew apple, pomegranate, and jaman and in honey and the date. The determination of sugars in some of these chemical methods also confirms these results. Mango-steen shell extract contains a small amount of the pentose sugar, arabinose. The mangosteen fruit contains in addition to sucrose, glucose and fructose, a fourth sugar which has an Rf. value slightly less than that for sucrose. This additional sugar may be maltose, judged from its position on the chromatogram. Further work is necessary to confirm this.