The synthesis of polysaccharides, glycoproteins, glycolipids, glycosylated secondary metabolites and hormones requires a large number of glycosyltransferases and a constant supply of nucleotide sugars. In plants, photosynthesis and the NDP-sugar inter-conversion pathway are the major entry points to form NDP-sugars. In addition to these pathways is the salvage pathway, a less understood metabolism that provides the flux of NDP-sugars. This latter pathway involves the hydrolysis of glycans to free sugars, sugar transport, sugar phosphorylation and nucleotidylation. The balance between glycan synthesis and recycling as well as its regulation at various plant developmental stages remains elusive as many of the molecular components are unknown. To understand how the salvage pathway contributes to the sugar flux and cell wall biosynthesis, my research focused on the functional identification of salvage pathway sugar kinases and NDP-sugar pyrophosphorylases. This research led to the first identification and enzymatic characterization of galacturonic acid kinase (GalA kinase), galactokinase (GalK), a broad UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase (sloppy), two promiscuous UDP-GlcNAc pyrophosphorylases (GlcNAc-1-P uridylyltransferases), as well as UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase paralogs from Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania major. To evaluate the salvage pathway in plant biology, we further investigated a sugar kinase mutant: galacturonic acid kinase mutant (galak) and determined if and how galak KO mutant affects the synthesis of glycans in Arabidopsis. Feeding galacturonic acid to the seedlings exhibited a 40-fold accumulation of free GalA in galak mutant, while the wild type (WT) plant readily metabolizes the fed-sugar. These findings suggest that in vivo, the GalAK gene product functions to salvage GalA in Arabidopsis. Interestingly, the galak mutant showed no visible morphological phenotype compared to WT, and the cell wall sugar composition was not affected in the mutant. Immunohistochemical analysis of galak indicated no glycan structural changes in galak. The information gained indicates that the gene encoding GalAK is required for proper recycling of GalA in plant cell. However, knocking out GalAK is not detrimental for plant cell wall synthesis, plant growth and development.