The objective of this work is to develop a degradation method which will allow monosaccharides to be sequentially removed from the reducing end of oligosaccharides. Monosaccharides will first be removed from oligosaccharides containing 4-7 sugars and experiments will be performed to understand the mechanism of one of the key degradation reactions. The method will then be extended to oligosaccharides which contain sugars with nitrogen substitutents and protecting groups. The overall utility of the method is two fold: 1) it will provide a technique for structural elucidations for unknown oligosaccharides and 2) it will provide a preparative method for the generation of new oligosaccharides by the removal of one or more monosaccharide units from the reducing end.
With this award, the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program is supporting the research of Dr. Brad K. Bendiak of the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Dr. Bendiak will develop a new chemical degradation method to be used primarily for determining the structures of polysaccharides (sugars). However, the overall utility of the method to be studied is two fold: 1) it will provide a technique for structural elucidations for unknown polysaccharides and 2) it will provide a preparative method for the generation of new polysaccharides by the sequential removal of one or more monosaccharide units from the starting sugar. Students trained as a result of working on this project will gain experience in bioorganic and supramolecular organic chemistry, hence they will have skills needed by the pharmaceutical and speciality chemicals industries.
