Preparation of low-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid by ozone treatment.

Recently, low-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid has been reported to have novel features, such as free radical scavenging activities, antioxidant activities, promotion of excisional wound healing, etc. In the present work, degradation of native hyaluronic acid by ozone treatment was performed for preparation of low-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid. The molecular weight of native hyaluronic acid was reduced from 1535 to 87 kDa for 120 min at 40°C. The rate of reduction of molecular weight was 94.33%. The FT-IR, 13C NMR, and UV-vis spectra suggested that there was no obvious modification of chemical structure of low-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid. The use of degradation of native hyaluronic acid by ozone treatment can be a useful alternative for production of low-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid.