Some chemical and analytical aspects of polysaccharide modifications. IV. Electron spin resonance studies of nitroxide-labelled chitin and chitosan derivatives

Abstract

Nitroxide spin labels have been attached to chitin, chitosan, and their derivatives in order to investigate the solution and gel characteristics of these polymers. Thus, chitin was nonselectively acylated using the chloroacetamide label 3 to afford. the corresponding nitroxide derivative 4. Selective and nonselective labelling of chitosan was accomplished either via reductive alkylation using the keto label 5 and sodium cyanoborohydride or via a chitosan sulfate intermediate using labels 3 or 5. Two branched water soluble chitosan derivatives, carrying C-6 oxidized, terminal galactose side chains were selectively labelled by reductive animation using the amine label 13 to yield derivatives 14 and 15. Motional correlation values of the covalently-linked nitroxide moieties were shown to reflect the nature of the linkage between spin label and polymer, as well as structural differences between the branch residues of derivatives 14 and 15. The spin-probe – spin-label method was employed to demonstrate structural heterogeneities for the chitosan derivatives 7 and 15.