Glycosaminoglycans polymerization

Kobayashi S, Morii H, Itoh R, Kimura S, Ohmae M. Enzymatic polymerization to artificial hyaluronan a novel method to synthesize a glycosaminoglycan using a transition state analogue monomer. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001 123 11825-11826. 

Hyaluronan is the most common negatively charged glycosaminoglycan in the human vitreous humor, and is known to interact with polymeric and liposomal DNA complexes, where hyaluronan solutions have been shown to decrease the cellular uptake of complexes.This is useful for enhancing the availability and retention time of drugs administered to the eye. It is immunoneutral, which makes it useful for the attachment of biomaterials for use in tissue engineering and drug delivery... 

A 10-year effort to design an artificial skin (1) has yielded a bilayer polymeric membrane comprising a top silicone elastomeric layer and a bottom layer consisting of a novel, highly porous cross-linked collagen-glycosaminoglycan (GAG) network. The polymeric bilayer is termed a Stage... 

Ruponen M, Yla-Herttuala S, Urtti A (1999). Interactions of polymeric and liposomal gene delivery systems with extracellular glycosaminoglycans physicochemical and transfection studies. Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1415 331-341. 

After the production of the monosaccharide nucleotides which provides the basic material for biological polymerization of the glycosaminoglycan chain, the reactions to form the glycosaminoglycan chains (P4, S46) can be considered to occur in three stages chain initiation, chain propagation, and chain termination. 

As will be evident from studies on induced biosynthetic effects (Section 5), sulfation of glycosaminoglycans can be blocked selectively, but this does not seem to exert a feedback control since polysaccharide synthesis can still continue without sulfation. It would therefore seem unnecessary for the living system to provide a control at this stage, but that the system can adapt to variations in sulfate availability by use of the alternative, but not normal, sulfation route of sulfation after polymerization of the carbohydrate. 

Glycosaminoglycan (GAG) A polymerized sugar (see polysaccharide) commonly found in various... 

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