title: Identification of sugar isomers by single-molecule force spectroscopy.
abstract: The nanomechanical properties of beta-galactan, a 1 --> 4 linked beta-d-galactose polysaccharide, were investigated with AFM-based single-molecule force spectroscopy. AFM captured a unique plateau at 640 pN in the force spectrogram of beta-galactan, which is significantly different than the plateau at 280 pN in the force spectrogram of amylose. Thus, our results demonstrate that force spectroscopy is able to discriminate between sugar isomers in which axial and equatorial bonds at C1 and C4 are swapped.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Qingmin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Piotr E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Marszalek
mesh_terms: D002240:Carbohydrate Sequence; D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000737:chemistry*; D007536:Isomerism; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates