Polysaccharides nucleic acid derivatives

Ion-exchange Celluloses and Sephadex. A different type of ion-exchange column that finds extensive application in biochemistry for the purification of proteins, nucleic acids and acidic polysaccharides derives from cellulose by incorporating acidic and basic groups to give ion-exchangers of controlled add and basic strengths. Commercially available cellulose-type resins are listed in Tables 13 and 14. AG 501 x 8 (Bio-Rad) is a... 

UV and 400-750mn for visible spectra. The groups giving rise to the electronic transitions in the accessible regions are termed chromophores, which include aromatic amino acid residues in proteins, nucleic acids and derivatives, nucleotide coenzymes (e.g. NAD(P)H), flavins, hemes and some transition metal ions. Polysaccharides are devoid of chromophores and are therefore UV and visible spectrally inactive. 

Cell components or metabolites capable of recognizing individual and specific molecules can be used as the sensory elements in molecular sensors [11]. The sensors may be enzymes, sequences of nucleic acids (RNA or DNA), antibodies, polysaccharides, or other reporter molecules. Antibodies, specific for a microorganism used in the biotreatment, can be coupled to fluorochromes to increase sensitivity of detection. Such antibodies are useful in monitoring the fate of bacteria released into the environment for the treatment of a polluted site. Fluorescent or enzyme-linked immunoassays have been derived and can be used for a variety of contaminants, including pesticides and chlorinated polycyclic hydrocarbons. Enzymes specific for pollutants and attached to matrices detecting interactions between enzyme and pollutant are used in online biosensors of water and gas biotreatment [20,21]. 

This subject has been of continuing interest for several reasons. First, the present concepts of the chemical constitution of such important biopolymers as cellulose, amylose, and chitin can be confirmed by their adequate chemical synthesis. Second, synthetic polysaccharides of defined structure can be used to study the action pattern of enzymes, the induction and reaction of antibodies, and the effect of structure on biological activity in the interaction of proteins, nucleic acids, and lipides with polyhydroxylic macromolecules. Third, it is anticipated that synthetic polysaccharides of known structure and molecular size will provide ideal systems for the correlation of chemical and physical properties with chemical constitution and macromolecular conformation. Finally, synthetic polysaccharides and their derivatives should furnish a large variety of potentially useful materials whose properties can be widely varied these substances may find new applications in biology, medicine, and industry. 

Microbial mats and biofilms, defined as surface layers of microbes entrained in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) (Characklis and Marshall, 1989), are also important in changing the surface texture and erodibility of sediments in estuaries (de Beer and Kiihl, 2001). The EPS are primarily composed of cellular-derived polysaccharides, polyuronic acids, proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids (Decho and Lopez, 1993 Schmidt and Ahring, 1994). The EPS can serve as a cementing agent for surface sediment particles, thereby affecting the erodibility of sediments as well as the flux of dissolved constituents across the sediment-water interface (de Beer and Kiihl, 2001). 

Several pharmaceutical activities of nucleic acid analogs such as poly(VAd) have been studied in vitro and in cell-free systems [19]. It was expected that the present polymers would be effectively transferred into phagocytes by encapsulating in polysaccharide-coated liposomes and would show increased pharmaceutical activities similar to poly(maleic acid-a/l-2-cyclohexyl-l, 3-dioxap-5-ene) (MA-CDA) [68]. The activation of human neutrophils by poly(VAd) was evaluated by monitoring the in vitro superoxide anion production from activated human neutrophils. Shown in Table 15 is the superoxide liberated from human neutrophils (1 x 106 cells/ml) activated by poly(VAd) (0.5 mg/ml) as a function of time. Poly(VAd) encapsulated in mannan derivative-coated liposomes showed a... 

Of the three major components of biological structure, the proteins, nucleic acids, and polysaccharides, least is known about the polysaccharides at the secondary and tertiary level of molecular structure. This is because the polysaccharides cannot be obtained in crystals which are large enough for single crystal X-ray or neutron structure analysis. What structural information there is comes from fiber X-ray diffraction patterns. However good these diffraction patterns are, the structures derived from them will always be model-dependent. This is because the number of variable atomic parameters which determine the diffraction intensities exceeds the number of observed intensities. 

There is increasing interest in the development of foldamers or polymeric structures that can adopt organised secondary structures like those of proteins, nucleic acids and some polysaccharides [42]. Sugar amino acid-based foldamer research has so far been primarily concerned with synthesis of polymers with secondary sfructural features. Such foldamers may find application as scaffolds for peptidomimetic development if they adopt turn, helical and strand sfructures observed for peptides or if derivatives can act as ligands for peptide receptors ... 

---