NMR for the softer regions in polysaccharides

CELL 155

William T. Winter, cellulose@esf.edu, Cellulose Research Institute and Dept. of Chemistry, SUNY ESF, 121 Edwin C. Jahn Laboratory, Syracuse, NY 13210 and DeAnn Barnhart, dbarnhar@syr.edu, Cellulose Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, SUNY-ESF, 121 Jahn Laboratory, Syracuse, NY 13210.
Soft materials like gels, primary cell wall tissues, surfaces of nanocrystals, etc. offer many challenges for characterization in situ. Here, we report the use of 1 and 2 dimensional High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HRMAS) NMR spectroscopy to investigate such materials. As examples, we shall present some recent results on starch gels and knockout Arabidopsis thalliana plants. In the latter, each mutant is deficient in a gene that codes for a putative carbohydrate glycanase. Through comparisons of spectra obtained from juvenile root tissue, it is possible to associate specific chemical changes in the carbohydrate material with the mutated gene. Progress in relating these changes to other physical data will also be presented. Although clearly a work in progress, the preliminary results are encouraging for further development of this approach to complex soft polysaccharide systems.