The use of circular dichroism as a simple heparin-screening strategy.
Heparin, a heterogeneous polysaccharide, is used extensively as an anticoagulant. Recently, however, tainted heparin was associated with acute reactions that lead to numerous deaths. Extensive investigations ultimately showed oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, a semi-synthetic polysaccharide, to be present in the contaminated samples. These events highlighted the need for new, convenient heparin-screening methods capable of rapidly determining sample purity. In this work, we report the use of circular dichroism spectroscopy to analyze heparin samples for the presence of heparin-like adulterants (e.g., chondroitin sulfate A, dermatan sulfate, and oversulfated chondroitin sulfate) in a simple and straightforward manner. This strategy exploits the subtle differences in the optical properties of each polymer; these differences result from structural dissimilarities. To the best of our knowledge, the findings presented here are the first report of heparin purity screening using traditional spectropolarimetry techniques.
Department of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati, 404 Crosley Tower, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA.
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Stanley
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Stalcup
D000925:Anticoagulants / Q000737:chemistry*; D002809:Chondroitin Sulfates / Q000032:analysis*; D002942:Circular Dichroism / Q000379:methods*; D003871:Dermatan Sulfate / Q000032:analysis*; D004340:Drug Contamination; D006493:Heparin / Q000737:chemistry*
D000925:Anticoagulants; D003871:Dermatan Sulfate; D006493:Heparin; D002809:Chondroitin Sulfates