Heparan Sulphate Oligoaccharides
Excised by Specific Enzymes
Naturally-Occuring Structures
Analysis of HS domain Organisation
Heparan Sulphate (HS) is a near-universal co-receptor for many growth factors and morphogenic proteins; it has a complex domain organisation of alternating high and low sulphated regions in which the various patterns of modification by sulphation by and epimerisation create considerable structural diversity designed for selective binding to its many client proteins.
Heparinase III digestion.
Hep III degrades the low sulphated regions of HS and is used to prepare oligos rich in the Heparinase III resistant high-sulphation domains (S-domains)
The HS-oligos in the enzyme digests were separated by high resolution gel filtration and the molecular size profiles of the individual peaks assesed on Superdex S-75 hplc. Although substantially homogeneous on S-75 the HS-oligos in each size class will contains sequences that vary in composition and there may be some limited overlap with oligos in adjacent size groups.