Electrophoretic methods for the analysis of glycosaminoglycans (complex polysaccharides).

Electrophoresis is a powerful method to separe, analyze and quantify glycosaminoglycans species in mixtures, their derivatives or oligosaccharides. In this paper, the main electrophoretic systems to analyze glycosaminoglycans and derivatives are illustrated.Electrophoretic separations of polysaccharides on cellulose acetate strips are used for a long time, and this system is rapid and sensitive to separate heparan sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, dermatan sulfate, hyaluronic acid, heparin and keratan sulfate. The agarose-gel electrophoresis of polysaccharides permits the separation of chondroitin sulfate, dermatan sulfate, fast moving and slow moving heparin species. Heparan sulfate, dermatan sulfate and chondroitin sulfate at the nanogram level after silver staining can be measured.Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) is a very useful tool to characterize properties and structures of glycosaminoglycans. Actually, PAGE is a powerful technique for a rapid sequencing of heparan sulfate and heparin saccharides, and for the characterization and quantitation of hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate/dermatan sulfate saccharides.Electrophoresis on large-pore composite polyacrylamide-agarose gel is usually applied to the separation and characterization of high molecular weight polymers such as proteoglycans.