title: Monte Carlo study of cycloamylose: chain conformation, radius of gyration, and diffusion coefficient.
abstract: Cyclic (1 --> 4)-alpha-D-glucan chains with or without excluded volume have been collected from a huge number (about 10(7)) of linear amylosic chains generated by the Monte Carlo method with a conformational energy map for maltose, and their mean-square radii of gyration <S(2)> and translational diffusion coefficients D (based on the Kirkwood formula) have been computed as functions of x (the number of glucose residues in a range from 7 to 300) and the excluded-volume strength represented by the effective hard-core radius. Both <S(2)>/x and D in the unperturbed state weakly oscillate for x < 30 and the helical nature of amylose appears more pronouncedly in cyclic chains than in linear chains. As x increases, these properties approach the values expected for Gaussian rings. Though excluded-volume effects on them are always larger in cycloamylose than in the corresponding linear amylose, the ratios of <S(2)> and the hydrodynamic radius of the former to the respective properties of the latter in good solvents can be slightly lower than or comparable to the (asymptotic) Gaussian-chain values when x is not sufficiently large. An interpolation expression is constructed for the relation between the gyration-radius expansion factors for linear and cyclic chains from the present Monte Carlo data and the early proposed asymptotic relation with the aid of the first-order perturbation theories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Macromolecular Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakata
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Norisuye
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kitamura
mesh_terms: D002236:Carbohydrate Conformation; D003505:Cyclodextrins / Q000737:chemistry*; D009010:Monte Carlo Method
chemical_list: D003505:Cyclodextrins