A simple method to calculate the degree of polymerization of alginate oligosaccharides and low molecular weight alginates

Ming Sun; Chu Sun; Hongguo Xie; Shenggang Yan; Heng Yin

doi:10.1016/j.carres.2019.107856

A simple method to calculate the degree of polymerization of alginate oligosaccharides and low molecular weight alginates

Carbohydr Res. 2019 Dec 1:486:107856. doi: 10.1016/j.carres.2019.107856. Epub 2019 Oct 24.

Authors

Ming Sun¹, Chu Sun², Hongguo Xie³, Shenggang Yan⁴, Heng Yin⁵

Affiliations

¹ Dalian Engineering Research Center for Carbohydrate Agricultural Preparations, Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory of Carbohydrates, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China; Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China. Electronic address: sunxiaomingdlmu@dicp.ac.cn.
² Dalian Engineering Research Center for Carbohydrate Agricultural Preparations, Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory of Carbohydrates, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China; University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, USA. Electronic address: valerie.sun@berkeley.edu.
³ Dalian Engineering Research Center for Carbohydrate Agricultural Preparations, Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory of Carbohydrates, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China. Electronic address: xiehg@dicp.ac.cn.
⁴ Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China. Electronic address: yanshenggang@dlmu.edu.cn.
⁵ Dalian Engineering Research Center for Carbohydrate Agricultural Preparations, Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory of Carbohydrates, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China. Electronic address: yinheng@dicp.ac.cn.

PMID: 31689577
DOI: 10.1016/j.carres.2019.107856

Abstract

This study presents a quick, simple and accurate method to calculate the degree of polymerization (DP) of alginate oligosaccharides (AOS) and low molecular weight alginates from the concentration of reducing sugar determined by 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) assay. ¹H NMR spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy (MS) and certified standards were used to verify the accuracy of this method, and the results showed DP calculated from DNS assay agreed with the actual DP. This method has great potential to simplify the process of measuring DP of alginate in lab and thus could be incorporated into various researches on alginates in the future. Moreover, similar method could be applied when studying the DP of other oligosaccharides.

Keywords: 3,5-Dinitrosalicylic acid; Alginate lyase; Alginate oligosaccharides; Degree of polymerization.

MeSH terms

Alginates / chemistry*
Molecular Weight
Oligosaccharides / chemistry*
Polymerization*

Substances

Alginates
Oligosaccharides