scholarly journals Study of hyaluronic acid flexibility by electric birefringence

1983 ◽  
Vol 213 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
H H Trimm ◽  
B R Jennings

Transient-electric-birefringence experiments were conducted on four samples of hyaluronic acid over the molecular-mass (M) range 5 X 10(4)-4 X 10(6) in dilute aqueous solution. The geometrical, optical and electrical characteristics were monitored via the rotary relaxation times, optical-polarizability antisotropies and electrical polarizabilities respectively. Each indicates the molecular conformation to be consistent with some degree of rigidity at low M but that this does not persist at high M. The molecules do not become true random coils, but are best characterized in terms of a persistence length of 20 nm or 20 disaccharide units.

1978 ◽  
Vol 173 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Isles ◽  
A R Foweraker ◽  
B R Jennings ◽  
T Hardingham ◽  
H Muir

An electric field causes partial alignment of macromolecules in a dilute solution. The accompanying changes in the solution birefringence offer a sensitive and quick means of monitoring the rates of particle orientation and hence the size of the solute molecules. Such measurements are reported for dilute solutions of proteoglycans in the absence and presence of added hyaluronic acid. The proteoglycan molecules are shown to be some 580 nm long. In the presence of hyaluronic acid they form aggregates that appear to be consistent with the model previously proposed in which the proteoglycans attach radially to the extended hyaluronic acid chain. The electric-birefringence relaxation rates indicate aggregates of similar length to that of the extended hyaluronic acid chain, with the proteoglycans spaced on average at 29nm intervals. A proteoglycan sample the cystine residues of which had been reduced and alkylated showed no evidence of aggregation with hyaluronic acid up to the concentrations of the acid corresponding to 1% of the total uronic acid content. The electric-birefringence method is shown to have a large potential in the study of associating polysaccharide solutions.


Biopolymers ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 639-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. De Groot ◽  
J. Greve ◽  
Joh. Block

Author(s):  
E. Y. Hawkins ◽  
M. Isles ◽  
A. R. Foweraker ◽  
B. R. Jennings ◽  
T. Hardingham ◽  
...  

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