The research of oligosaccharides which are not only noncariogenic, but also anti-cariogenic (inhibitory against the cariogenicity of sucrose) must be valuable to the prevention of caries induced by sucrose. Ten years ago, we had developed sucrose-coupled oligosaccharides (coupling sugarR) from starch and sucrose by the transfer action of cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase. The coupling sugar has the anti-cariogenic properties, and has been introduced for use in the various foods such as cookies, candies and jams, as substitutional sweetner for sucrose. On the basis of this success, various sucrose derivatives were synthesized to get more powerful anti-cariogenic saccharides and examined for the anti-cariogenic properties. Of the saccharides tested, isomaltosylfructoside and xylosylfructoside were not readily fermented by Streptococcus mutans and did not serve as the substrate for glucan synthesis, furthermore, they had very strong inhibitory effects on the synthesis of insoluble glucan from sucrose.
