Glycoblotting-based high throughput protocol for the structural characterization of hyaluronan degradation products during enzymatic fragmentation.

Increasing interests have been focused on the functional roles of hyaluronan degradation products, namely hyaluronan oligosaccharides, as signal molecules regulating cell growth, differentiation, malignancy, and inflammatory responses. It is clear that molecular size of hyaluronan oligosaccharides might be crucial for defining possible and dynamic roles in supporting and suppressing homeostatic cellular processes. The present paper communicates a facile and efficient approach based on glycoblotting method for the characterization of hyaluronan fragments liberated from three different sources of hyaluronan (rooster comb, bovine vitreous humor, and Streptococcus) by in vitro degradation using two typical hyaluronidases of bovine testicular (EC 3.2.1.35) and Streptomyces hyalurolyticus (EC 4.2.2.1). It was demonstrated that glycoblotting method allows for high throughput and quantitative analysis of hyaluronan fragments within a wide dynamic range (1 ~ 1,000 pmole) when 5 μg of hyaluronan digests were applied for this enrichment protocol. Molecular size and distribution of hyaluronan fragments were proved to be influenced strongly by conditions and hyaluronidases employed while source of hyaluronan did not affect the degradation profiles. Strikingly, the present method uncovered the existence of the smallest and unusual hyaluronan degradation fragments such as a disaccharide GlcAβ1-3GlcNAc during the digestion by bovine hyaluronidase and a trisaccharide GlcAβ1-3GlcNAcβ1-4GlcA derivative by Streptomyces hyaluronidase. Bovine testis hyaluronidases afforded hyaluronan tetra- and hexasaccharides as major products. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that Streptomyces hyaluronidase can produce odd number fragments from three to nine sugar residues while even number fragments from four to fourteen sugar residues were major products.