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Variations in content and structure of glycosaminoglycans of the vitreous gel from different mammalian species
Author(s) -
Noulas Argiris V.,
Skandalis Spyros S.,
Feretis Elias,
Theocharis Dimitrios A.,
Karamanos Nikos K.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
biomedical chromatography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.4
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1099-0801
pISSN - 0269-3879
DOI - 10.1002/bmc.336
Subject(s) - chemistry , glycosaminoglycan , chromatography , electrophoresis , molecular mass , capillary electrophoresis , sulfation , biochemistry , enzyme
The vitreous of all species is composed of essentially the same type of extracellular matrix macromolecules organized to a transparent gel. In this study, the composition and ne chemical structure of the glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) in the vitreous gel from sheep and goat were determined and compared with those of human and pig vitreous gels. The results showed that, in all examined species; hyaluronan (HA) was the predominant GAG, whereas chondroitin sulphate (CS) was the minor one. In the vitreous gel of the most relative species, i.e. sheep and goat, higher amounts of both of HA and CS were estimated as compared with pig and human tissues. The distribution of hydrodynamic sizes of HA and CS was signicantly differed among different species. All HA preparations consisted of molecules with great variability in hydrodynamic sizes. The relative proportions of the large HA molecules (size >1.8 × 10 6 kDa) were signicantly higher in sheep and goat as compared with human and pig vitreous gel. The length of CS chains was also of larger size in sheep and goat (50 and 58 kDa, respectively) than the respective chains in human and pig vitreous gel (38 and 28 kDa, respectively). The sulphation patterns of CS preparations were determined following enzymic treatments, HPLC and capillary electrophoretic analyses. The human vitreous‐derived CS chains showed quite different sulphation prole than that of CS isolated from other species, since 4‐sulphated disaccharides were identied as the dominant moiety. In conclusion, signicant compositional and structural variations between the vitreous matrixes of different species at the GAG level were identied. The functional signicance of these species‐dependent variations is discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.