CHARACTERIZATION OF METHYL GLYCOSIDES AT THE PICO- TO NANO-GRAM LEVEL

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/0008-6215(83)88042-2

We describe a general method that permits characterization of 100-pg to 1-ng quantities of sugars.Thus, oligosaccharides are subjected to methanolysis, followed by per-p-bromobenzoylation or pernaphthoylation, and the methyl glycoside peresters are separated by high-pressure liquid chromatography.The method is also applicable to amino and acetamido sugars.If required, the separated sugar derivatives may be unequivocally identified by the characteristic quasi-M⁺ peaks of bromobenzoates and extrema of excitation-split circular-dichroism (c.d.) curves.Furthermore, as the c.d. extrema of polybenzoates are predictable from extrema of component dibenzoate units, the c.d. data yield information on the unknown spatial disposition of -OH, -NH2, and -NHAc groups of glycopyranoses.Application of the method is demonstrated with viridopentaose C, a pentasaccharide obtained from the antibiotic sporaviridin.