Solvolytic depolymerization of chondroitin and dermatan sulfates.

It is essential to establish a library of glycosaminoglycan oligosaccharides from the chondroitin and dermatan sulfates to investigate their biological functions and structure-activity relationships (SARs). There are several approaches to obtain oligosaccharides using chemical and enzymatic degradation procedures; however, purification of each resulting oligosaccharide is complicated because of the diversity of sulfonation patterns present in these oligosaccharides. We have developed a new method for the solvolytic degradation for chondroitin and dermatan sulfates to obtain an oligosaccharide mixture that can be easily purified into chondro/dermato oligosaccharides for characterization by both (1)H NMR and MALDI-TOFMS. These oligosaccharides have a methyl-esterified uronate residue and a methyl 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-galactofuranoside at the nonreducing and reducing ends, respectively. All other internal repeating disaccharide units were desulfonated, but maintained their core carbohydrate structures.