STRUCTURE FUNCTION RELATIONSHIPS IN POLYSACCHARIDES

Illinois Institute Of Technology, Chicago IL

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Linked publications & trials

Abstract

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Polysaccharides are used in food and pharmaceutical applications due to their inherent abilities such as gelation, viscosity and thickening behavior. As the macroscopic properties of these biopolymers are dictated mainly by their molecular geometry and atomic level interactions, accurate molecular details of biologically and industrially important polysaccharides are very much in need for gaining better insights about their structure-function relationships. As members of the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research, Purdue University, our aim further constitutes a major part of the multidisciplinary research activities of the Center. We have so far successfully deciphered the roles of cations and/or side groups in the junction zone formation of gellan related polysaccharides, galactomannan and iota-carrageenan, to name a few, towards understanding their functional properties. In this regard, our long term research goals are to determine polysaccharides architectures and their interactions with solvent and solute molecules as well as the synergistic interactions in mixed polysaccharide systems. In this ongoing study, we chose a number of biologically important and industrial useful polysaccharides, such as specimens from algal (iota-, kappa- and lambda-carrageenans);bacterial (gellan analog and cepacian);fungal (glucoronoxylomannan);plan (rhamnogalacturonan) and a binary system (bacterial acetan: plan glucomannan). More recently, we ventured in to the area of utilizing polysaccharide fibers as drug carriers.