Polysaccharides mercaptolysis

Mercaptolysis of glycosidically linked sugars, that is, treatment of the sugar with ethanethiol and a mineral acid, is an established procedure for fragmentation of oligosaccharides and polysaccharides, and generally... 

Other developments in the chemistry of dithioacetals included preparation of the first dithioacetal of a ketose (D-fhictose), and the establishing of the technique of mercaptolysis for the fragmentation of polysaccharides. In other hands, the technique of mercaptolysis has been applied successfully for determination of structure, notahly with... 

Mercaptolysis, that is, treatment of a polysaccharide with an alkanethiol and concentrated hydrochloric acid, causes fragmentation of the macromolecule with the formation of dialkyl dithioacetals at the reducing end of each fragment. Reaction may be partial or complete the ohgosaccharide and monosaccharide dialkyl dithioacetals generally crystalhze well and are often suitable characterization derivatives for the structural components of the polysaccharide. 

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