Glycosidic bond

Glycosidic bonds join monosaccharides or longer sugar chains to other carbohydrates, forming disaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. It is a type of covalent bond.

These sugar chains of monosaccharides are able to form further glycosidic bonds with alcohols and amines to produce sugar acetals/glycosides and nucleosides.If the anomeric carbon of the sugar forms the bond with the oxygen atom in the hydroxyl group in the alcohol, the bond is named an O-glycosidic bond. Conversely, if the anomeric carbon of the sugar forms the bond with the nitrogen atom of an amine, the bond is then called a N-glycosidic bond.