Modeling polysaccharides

Le Bourvellec, C., Bouchet, B., Renard, C. M. G. C. (2005). Non-covalent interaction between procyanidins and apple cell wall material. Part III Study on model polysaccharides. Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1725, 10-18. 

G. Raj, E. Balnois, M.A. Helias, C. Baley, and Y. Grohens, Measuring adhesion forces between model polysaccharide films and PLA bead to mimic molecular interactions in flax/ PLA biocomposite./. Mafer. Sci. 47(5), 2175-2181 (2012). 

Polyethylene oxides and amyloses (Mr > 4000) readily complex with polyphenols but quantitative studies have been severely limited by the availability of water-soluble polysaccharides with clearly defined molecular characteristics. Semi-quantitative studies show that the association of polyphenols with polysaccharides is - in contrast to that with proteins - broadly independent of pH. Molecular size and flexibility are likewise critical factors but, significantly, where the polysaccharide can sequester the hydrophobic aryl residues of the polyphenol - holes in a crystal lattice (cellulose) or hydrophobic cavities (amylose and polysaccharide gels) - then complexation is substantially enhanced. Open, flexible, filamentous polysaccharides, such as the l-a-6-dextrans conversely bind phenolic substrates very poorly. It is interesting to note that model polysaccharide holes - in the form of the a- and 3- cyclodextrins - can sequester the aryl residues of certain polyphenols in the core of the molecule. In doing... 

A P. cocos preparation, a hydroalcoholic extract, as well as some of the triterpene acids displayed anti-inflammatory activities in different in vivo models. Polysaccharides isolated from P. cocos were found to induce NF-kB and nitric oxide production, as well as iNOS expression. ... 

To gain an insight into the likely hydrolytic behavior of sulfated simple sugars and polysaccharides, Brimacombe, Foster, Hancock, Overend, and Stacey carried out a rigorous set of experiments with the cyclic sulfates of cyclohexane cis-and trims-1,2-diol as model compounds. The results were interpreted on the reasonable assumption that, in all cases, the cyclic sulfates initially afford a diol monosulfate. Examples of both S-0 and C-0 bond cleavage were encountered. A qualitative reaction mechanism was proposed for use as a working hypothesis for the hydrolysis of sugar sulfates. 

Five articles on polysaccharide helices solved prior to 1979 have appeared in the volumes published between 1967 and 1982.2-6 The first was a review on X-ray fiber diffraction and its application to cellulose, chitin, amylose, and related structures, and the rest were bibliographic accounts. Since then, X-ray structures of several new polysaccharides composed of simple to complex repeating units have been successfully determined, thanks to technological advances in fiber-diffraction techniques, the availability of fast and powerful computers, and the development of sophisticated software. Also, some old models have been either re-... 

The side chains in the latter are flexible disaccharides on account of poor-quality diffraction patterns, their tentative molecular structures are known only from computer modeling.1" On the other hand, well-defined crystal structures are available for gellan and welan, and they can be correlated with the physical properties of the polysaccharides the details are presented here. Their conformation angles are listed in Table VI. 

Trommer, H. Neubert, R.H. (2005). The examination of polysaccharides as potential antioxidative compounds for topical administration using a lipid model system. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Vol. 298, No. 1, 0uly 2005), pp.153-163, ISSN 0378-5173. 

Kacurakova, M., Capek, P., Sasinkova, V., WeUner, N. Ebringerova, A. (2000). FT-IR study of plant cell wall model compounds pectic polysaccharides and hemicelluloses. Carbohydrate Polymers, Vol. 43,2, (October 2000), pp. (195-203), ISSN 0144-8617... 

Further research is directed to the determination of the fine-structure of the pectins and hemicelluloses isolated from soy meal, using chromatography and degradation with specific enzymes. With these results a model of the polysaccharides present in the cell wall of soy will be formulated. Furthermore, application directed experiments will be performed to obtain information about structure-function relationships. 

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