Hyaluronan: the absence of amide-carboxylate hydrogen bonds and the chain conformation in aqueous solution are incompatible with stable secondary and tertiary structure models.

ABSTRACT: Contradictory descriptions for the aqueous solution conformation of the glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan (HA) exist in the literature. According to hydrodynamic and simulation data, HA molecules are stiffened by a rapidly interchanging network of transient hydrogen bonds at the local level and do not significantly associate at the global level. In marked contrast, models derived from NMR data suggest that the secondary structure involves persistent hydrogen bonds and that strong associations between chains can occur to form vast stable tertiary structures. These models require an extended 2-fold helical conformation of the HA chain and specific hydrogen bonds between amide and carboxylate groups. To test these descriptions, we have used 15N-labelled oligosaccharides and high-field NMR to measu

SUBMITTER: Blundell CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1482818 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature