Sugars estimation reactions

The total content of RNA + DNA in tissues may be estimated from the phosphorus content or by color reactions of the sugars. These reactions depend upon dehydration to furfural or deoxyfurfural by concentrated sulfuric acid or HCl (Eq. 4-4). Furfural formed from RNA reacts with orcinol (3,5-dihydroxy-toluene) and ferric chloride to produce a green color useful in colorimetric estimation of RNA. A similar reaction of DNA with diphenylamine yields a blue color. 

A tripeptide containing a sulphydryl group which has a role in maintaining the integrity of erythrocytes by virtue of it being an important regulator of oxidation-reduction reactions. It is known to interfere in some methods of blood sugar estimation. 

Breslow studied the dimerisation of cyclopentadiene and the reaction between substituted maleimides and 9-(hydroxymethyl)anthracene in alcohol-water mixtures. He successfully correlated the rate constant with the solubility of the starting materials for each Diels-Alder reaction. From these relations he estimated the change in solvent accessible surface between initial state and activated complex " . Again, Breslow completely neglects hydrogen bonding interactions, but since he only studied alcohol-water mixtures, the enforced hydrophobic interactions will dominate the behaviour. Recently, also Diels-Alder reactions in dilute salt solutions in aqueous ethanol have been studied and minor rate increases have been observed Lubineau has demonstrated that addition of sugars can induce an extra acceleration of the aqueous Diels-Alder reaction . Also the effect of surfactants on Diels-Alder reactions has been studied. This topic will be extensively reviewed in Chapter 4. 

In as far as other analytical methods are concerned, many specific reactions have been elaborated for the quantitative determination of 2-deoxy aldoses. 2-Deoxy-D-ribose (2-deoxy-D-erythro-pentose), a compound which was recognized early as playing an important role in biological systems, has been of particular interest. Overend and Stacey (43) have given a critical review of the methods available until 1952 for the estimation of 2-deoxy pentoses. A recent summary of specific methods for the identification and quantitative estimation of the different classes of deoxy sugars has been prepared by Dische (13). 

Despite the above-mentioned short-comings, this approach to the estimation of those deoxy sugars which yield malonaldehyde when oxidized with periodate, seemed promising, since, as has been seen (58,59), the dye is formed quantitatively in the reaction of malonaldehyde with 2-thiobarbituric acid also, more recently, its constitution (49,57) and molar extinction coefficient (36) have been established. Thus, if conditions could be found in which malonaldehyde, while being formed quantitatively from the deoxy sugars, would be stable, an ideal method, independent of standard compounds, would be available for the quantitative determination of all of these sugars. 

Sugar is detected in these waters by treating 2 c.c. of the liquid with 5 drops of 20% alcoholic a-naphthol solution and then carefully adding 10 c.c. of concentrated sulphuric acid (absolutely free from nitric acid) so that the two liquids do not mix. In presence of sugar, a violet ring forms at the surface of separation. A few comparative tests will indicate if the quantity of sugar is estimable the reaction is very sensitive and detects even o ooi% of sugar. 

Estimation of Catalytic Activity. The catalytic activities of the copolymers on the hydrolysis of polysaccharides were estimated, with the measurement of increase in reducing sugar in the reaction mixture with reaction time according to Somogyi method (22). The hydrolysis rates of sucrose were determined from the measurement of optical rotatory power... 

For the release of an unaltered base, the sugar moiety must be damaged. In principle, the base could already be released from a radical site at the sugar moiety, i.e. on the time-scale of the lifetime of the DNA radicals. The observation of 2-dRL incorporated into DNA as a product formed upon OH attack shows that a damage at C(l ) contributes to the release of an unaltered base. In the carbohydrate series, hydrolytic scission at the glycosidic linkage when this site contains a free-radical is a well-documented phenomenon, and it has been estimated that the rate of reaction must be faster than 35 s 1 (von Sonntag and Schuchmann 2001). As it stands, it cannot be excluded, that under certain conditions the base release from the C(l ) radical [reaction (38)] occurs in competition to its oxidation [reaction (2)]. In a cellular environment, there is also the reduction of DNA... 

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