Reducing terminals of urinary chondroitin sulfate

Human urinary chondroitin sulfate isolated from the cetylpyridinium chloride-complex of the non-dialyzable fraction of the pooled urine was subjected to ethanol fractionation, successive enzymic digestion with neuraminidase and mucopolysaccharidases, and anion exchange chromatography. The gas liquid chromatographic analyses of the acetyl and butaneboronic acid ester derivatives of the reduced terminal sugar units after treatment with sodium borohydride plus hydrolysis revealed that 42% of the urinary chondroitin sulfate was bound to peptide through xylose. The reducing terminal sugar units of the peptide-free form consisted of 34.6% of xylose, 22.4% of galactose, 16.4% of glucose of unknown origin and 26.6% of glucuronic acid. These observations showed that the xyloside, galactoside and glucuronide linkages at non-terminal sites of carbohydrate chains of chondroitin sulfate were cleaved in tissues. It was thus suggested that the endo-types of beta-xylosidase, beta-galactosidase and beta-glucuronidase, which act on proteochondroitin sulfate are present in tissues.