The Molecular Weight Distribution of the Chondroitin Sulfates of Bovine and Whale Nasal Septum

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Chondroitin sulfates were quantitatively extracted from bovine and whale nasal septum without indiscriminate depolymerization by treatment with 0.5 M sodium hydroxide containing 0.26 M sodium borohydride at 3–5°C for 10 days. The reducing-end xylitol of the glycosaminoglycans was accurately determined by a microchemical method which had been developed for the separation and determination of the reducing-end alditols of reduced polysaccharides with high molecular weight (Yamaguchi, H., Inamura, S., & Makino, K. (1976) J. Biochem. 79, 299–303; Yamaguchi, H. & Makino, K. (1977) J. Biochem. 81, 563–569). The xylitol proportion of each glycosaminoglycan was in fair agreement with the xylose proportion of the corresponding chondroitin sulfate prepared by proteolytic digestion, suggesting that the xylose residues of the chondroitin sulfate chains are all situated in the reducing-end position and are quantitatively converted to xylitol by reductive β-elimination during the extraction with alkaline sodium borohydride. Accordingly, the molecular weight of the glycosaminoglycans was readily derived from the ratio of xylitol content to polysaccharide weight. The combined use of this method for molecular weight estimation and gel chromatography made it feasible to analyze the molecular weight range of chondroitin sulfates on relatively small amounts of materials. The chondroitin sulfates prepared by alkali extraction were fractionated on Sephadex G-200 into 12 fractions. The molecular weight determination of the glycosaminoglycan in each fraction revealed that the molecular weight ranges of the chondroitin sulfates are appreciably wider than those previously reported. Linear relationships were found for every chondroitin sulfate preparation when the partition coefficient Kav and the elution volume of each fraction were plotted against the log of the corresponding molecular weight determined by the present method.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: