For biosynthetic reasons, most saccharides are almost always more abundant in nature as the "D"-form, or structurally analogous to D-glyceraldehyde
In synthetic biology, arabinose is often used as a one-way or reversible switch for protein expression under the Pbad promoter in E. coliD-(-)-Arabinose is used in culture media for some bacteria. It serves as a component of biopolymers such as hemicellulose and pectin. In the synthetic biology laboratory,