Maltoside

A maltoside is a glycoside with maltose as the glycone (sugar) functional group.

Given their amphiphilic properties, these comprise a class of detergents, where variation in the alkyl chain confers a range of detergent properties including CMC and solubility.

Maltosides are most often used for the solubilization and purification of membrane proteins.

In 1980 Ferguson-Miller et al. at Michigan State developed n-dodecyl-β-D-maltopyranoside (DDM) as part of a successful effort to purify an active, stable, monodisperse form of cytochrome c oxidase.

[1] Maltosides have been used extensively to stabilize membrane proteins for biophysical and structural studies.