Simple sugars, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides, and their derivatives, including the methyl ethers with free or potentially free reducing groups, give an orangeyellow color w-hen treated with phenol and concentrated sulfuric acid. The reaction is sensitive and the color is stable. By use of this phenol-sulfuric acid reaction, a method has been developed to determine submicro amounts of sugars and related substances. In conjunction with paper partition chromatography the method is useful for the determination of the composition of polysaccharides and their methyl derivatives.

Colorimetric Method for Determination of Sugars and Related Substances

Carbohydrate analysis by a phenol-sulfuric acid method in microplate format.

Microplastics are taken up by mussels (Mytilus edulis) and lugworms (Arenicola marina) living in natural habitats.

Monoclonal antibody 19-9, produced by a hybridoma prepared from spleen cells of a mouse immunized with a human colon carcinoma cell line, detects an antigen in the serum from most patients with gastrointestinal and pancreatic cancer (M. Herlyn, H.F. Sears, Z. Steplewski, and H. Koprowski, J. Clin. Immunol., 2: 135-140, 1982). The epitope of this antibody is a carbohydrate with the sugar sequence (formula; see text) in which NeuNAc is N-acetylneuraminic acid, Gal is galactose, GlcNAc is N-acetylglucosamine, and Fuc is fucose. In the colon carcinoma cell line and many gastrointestinal and pancreatic cancers, this sequence occurs in a monosialoganglioside containing a sialylated Lea-active pentasaccharide (sialylated lacto-N-fucopentaose II, IV3-alpha-NeuNAc-III4-alpha-Fuc-LcOse4, in which LcOse4 is Gal beta 1-3GlcNAc beta 1-3Gal beta 1-4Glc) (J. L. Magnani et al. J. Biol. Chem., 257: 14365-14369, 1982). However, the antigen in the sera of patients occurs mainly as a mucin, not a ganglioside, based on the following evidence. Little antigen is extracted by organic solvents from sera, and that which is extracted remains at the origin under conditions of thin-layer chromatography where the ganglioside antigen migrates up the plate. Upon gel filtration of serum on Sephacryl S-400, the antigen is eluted in the void volume, indicating a molecular weight of greater than or equal to 5 X 10(6). Incubation for 5 hr at 37 degrees in 0.1 N NaOH destroys the serum antigen but does not affect the ganglioside antigen. The density of the serum antigen as determined in a CsCl gradient is 1.50 g/ml, while in 4 M guanidine. HCl its density is 1.43 g/ml. Finally, antigen affinity purified by antibody 19-9 from the serum of a cancer patient belonging to the Le(a-b+) blood group contains Leb antigen, consistent with the multiple antigenic specificities exhibited by mucins.

https://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/43/11/5489.full.pdf

Identification of the gastrointestinal and pancreatic cancer-associated antigen detected by monoclonal antibody 19-9 in the sera of patients as a mucin

A method for the separation of acid mucopolysaccharides: its application to the isolation of heparin from the skin of rats.

VOLUMETRIC procedures have been used for the quantitative determination of sugars after separation by partition chromatography1,2. It has been our experience that these methods not only require considerable skill, but also they are lengthy and sensitive to slight variation of the conditions. We have therefore attempted to develop a simple quantitative colorimetric procedure. Preliminary experiments showed that the anthrone3 and the α-naphthol sulphonate4 reagents give good results with pure sugar solutions, but the presence of only traces of solvents such as butanol, phenol and propionic acid used in the chromatographic separation of the sugars rendered them useless.

M Dubois

Papers

A colorimetric method for the determination of sugars.

Colorimetric method for deter-mination of sugar and related substance