RESUMO
We describe the purification and chemical characterization of galactomannans that appear both in the biomass and the culture broth during surface-liquid culture of the fungus Clonostachys rosea, a common facultative saprophyte that has potential to be used as a biological control agent against several plant pathogenic fungi, insects and nematodes. The galactomannans from both sources had comparable ratios of Man, Gal and Glc and the similarity were confirmed by (1)H, (13)C NMR, HMQC, and COSY spectra. We propose that the galactomannan in the culture broth originates from autolysis of the biomass, based not only on the similarity that it has with the galactomannan extracted from the biomass but also on the fact that its concentration increased rapidly after glucose depletion from the medium, when biomass concentration was falling. Polysaccharides from C. rosea have not previously been characterized; we show that the characteristics of the galactomannans are consistent with those that have been reported for other members of the Bionectriaceae, the family to which C. rosea belongs.