Nomenclature of Glycosaminoglycans and Proteoglycans

It is unnecessary in this article to review the historical aspects of the development of all these terms. It is suflScient to conclude that the terms acid mucopolysaccharide, acidic mucopolysaccharide, aminopoly-saccharide, mucopolysaccharide, mucopolysaccharide-protein complex, mucoprotein, polysaccharide-protein, and protein polysaccharide are misleading, historical, and redundant, and that we can well do without them. 

In all, eight glycosaminoglycans of essentially diflFerent chemical structures have been identified. Through the times, these glycosaminoglycans have been individually named in a number of ways, as shown in Table 1. Most of these names are used currently, and so the reader will find it useful to have this table available when consulting the primary literature. Where the term chondroitin sulfate appears in the more recent literature, this can mean chondroitin 4-sulfate or chondroitin 6-sulfate or a mixture of the two. The terms keratan sulfate I and keratan sulfate II are sometimes used to denote keratan sulfates of comeal and skeletal origin, respectively, there being some differences between the two. 

However, it has been accepted by many that, pending a complete systematization of polysaccharide nomenclature by the various nomenclature committees (a situation that in fact may never be realized), only one name for each should be regarded as the one which is up-to-date. As will be seen, some of the names in being altered have been systematized to include the terminal an. This review supports strongly the names given in the first column of Table 1, and these will be used. (The term chondroitin sulfate will be used when no distinction between 

Modern name Original name Other names 

Chondroitin 4-sulfate Chondroitin sulfate A Chondroitin sulfate 

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