Enzymatic and chemical methods for the generation of pure hyaluronan oligosaccharides with both odd and even numbers of monosaccharide units

Charles D. Blundell, Andrew Almond

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Hyaluronan oligosaccharides display physiological activities not associated with the polymer and are widely used to characterize hyaluronan-binding proteins. They can also be used as biocompatible starting blocks for chemical derivatization. Here we present methods for generating milligram quantities of unusual odd- and even-numbered oligosaccharides, greatly increasing the diversity of reagents for use in such studies. These methods are based upon protocols from the 1960s, at which time it was very difficult to assess the stereochemical purity of the products. To address this, products were analyzed with modern high-field nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Alkaline β-elimination conditions previously used to remove reducing-terminal N-acetylglucosamine residues in fact introduce a significant (∼30%) level of stereoisomerism in the products by alkali-catalyzed keto-enol tautomerizations. Milder alkaline conditions were used to overcome this problem, reducing the contamination to
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)236-247
    Number of pages11
    JournalAnalytical Biochemistry
    Volume353
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 15 Jun 2006

    Keywords

    • β-Elimination
    • Acid hydrolysis
    • Alkali degradation
    • Carbohydrate
    • Glycosaminoglycan

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