Chondroitin Sulfate Safety and Quality.

The industrial production of chondroitin sulfate (CS) uses animal tissue sources as raw
material derived from dierent terrestrial or marine species of animals. CS possesses a heterogeneous
structure and physical-chemical profile in dierent species and tissues, responsible for the various
and more specialized functions of these macromolecules. Moreover, mixes of dierent animal tissues
and sources are possible, producing a CS final product having varied characteristics and not well
identified profile, influencing oral absorption and activity. Finally, dierent extraction and purification
processes may introduce further modifications of the CS structural characteristics and properties
and may lead to extracts having a variable grade of purity, limited biological eects, presence of
contaminants causing problems of safety and reproducibility along with not surely identified origin.
These aspects pose a serious problem for the final consumers of the pharmaceutical or nutraceutical
products mainly related to the traceability of CS and to the declaration of the real origin of the active
ingredient and its content. In this review, specific, sensitive and validated analytical quality controls
such as electrophoresis, eHPLC (enzymatic HPLC) and HPSEC (high-performance size-exclusion
chromatography) able to assure CS quality and origin are illustrated and discussed.