Isolation of a sulfate ester of hyaluronic acid from heart valves.

The most characteristic componems of the intercellular matrix, or ground substance, of connective tissue are the highly polymerized acid mucopolysaccharides. Meyer and Rapport (1) distinguish five such acid mucopolysaccharides isolated from ground substance: three chondroitin sulfates (A, B, and C), hyaluronic acid, and hyaluronosulfate. These polymers have become of particular interest in recent years as a result of increasing interest in diseases of connective tissue, commonly termed “collagen diseases,” in which the earliest and most profound alterations are found in the ground substance (2, 3). In at least one such disease, rheumatic fever, one of the most destructive lesions involves the heart valves. Meyer and Rapport (1) have reported the isolation of chondroitin sulfates B and C from heart valves and the absence of hyaluronic acid and hyaluronosulfate. The purpose of this paper is to describe the isolation from heart valves of a sulfated mucopolysaccharide acid apparently identical with hyaluronosulfate, which has been previously found only in cornea (4).