1,720,991 research outputs found
Quantitative capillary electrophoresis determination of oversulfated chondroitin sulfate as a contaminant in heparin preparations
No full textA simple, accurate and robust quantitative CE method for the determination of oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) as a contaminant in heparin (Hep) preparations is described. After degradation of the polysaccharides by acidic hydrolysis, the hexosamines produced, i.e., GlcN from Hep and GalN from OSCS, were derivatized with anthranilic acid (AA) and separated by means of CE in approx. 10 min with high sensitivity detection at 214 nm (limit of detection (LOD) of approx. 200 pg). Furthermore, AA-derivatized GlcN and GalN showed quite similar molar absorptivity allowing for direct and simple quantification of OSCS in Hep samples. Moreover, a preliminary step of specific enzymatic treatment by using chondroitin ABC lyase may be applied for the specific elimination of interference in the analysis due to the possible presence in Hep samples of natural chondroitin sulfate and dermatan sulfate impurities, making this analytical approach highly specific for OSCS contamination, since chondroitin ABC lyase is unable to act on this semi-synthetic polymer. The CE method was validated for specificity, linearity, accuracy, precision, LOD and limit of quantification (LOQ). Due to the very high sensitivity of CE, as little as 1% OSCS contaminant in Hep sample could be detected and quantified. Finally, a contaminated raw Hep sample was found to contain 38.9% OSCS while a formulated contaminated Hep was calculated to have 39.7% OSCS
Mass spectrometry for the characterization of unsulfated chondroitin oligosaccharides from 2-mers to 16-mers. Comparison with hyaluronic acid oligomers
No full textThis study reports for the first time the complete LC-ESI-MS and MS/MS spectra performed in negative ion mode of saturated unsulfated chondroitin oligosaccharides up to 16-mers and comparison with hyaluronic acid (HA) oligomers differing only for the nature of the hexosamine residue. MS/MS of the chondroitin disaccharide on the singly-charged precursor at m/z 396.1 afforded a glycosidic cleavage C1 product ion at m/z 192.9. In the tetrasaccharide, C2 (m/z 396.0) and C3 (m/z 572.0) product anions were generated by glycosidic cleavage. A C5 [M-2H]-2 product ion at m/z 475.1 was generated by the glycosidic cleavage of the hexasaccharide, and a C7 ion (m/z 664.6, charge state of -2) was produced from the octasaccharide. The same fragmentation pattern of deprotonated oligomers was observed for the largest oligosaccharides, from 10- to 16-mers. There is no previous report of MS/MS spectra for unsulfated chondroitin oligomers of these sizes. Nonsulfated saturated chondroitin oligosaccharides with x-mer units and larger than a tetrasaccharide dissociate to almost exclusively form CX-1-type ions. Saturated HA oligomers also afforded the same fragmentation pattern of deprotonated oligomers by ESI-MS and MS/MS analyses. Thus, under the experimental conditions used in the current study we were unable to distinguish between unsulfated chondroitin and HA
Capillary electrophoresis of complex natural polysaccharides
No full textComplex natural polysaccharides, glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), are a class of ubiquitous macromolecules that exhibit a wide range of biological functions and participate and regulate multiple cellular events and (patho)physiological processes. They are generally present either as free chains (hyaluronic acid and bacterial acidic polysaccharides) or as side chains of proteoglycans (PGs) (chondroitin/dermatan sulfate, heparin/heparan sulfate and keratan sulfate) and are most often found in cell membranes and in the extracellular matrix. The recent emergence of modern analytical tools for their study has produced a virtual explosion in the field of glycomics. Capillary electrophoresis (CE), due to its high resolving power and sensitivity, has been useful in the analysis of intact GAGs and GAG-derived oligosaccharides and disaccharides affording concentration and structural characterization data essential for understanding the biological functions of GAGs. In this review, novel off-line and on-line CE-MS and tandem MS methods for screening of GAG-derived oligosaccharides and disaccharides will be discussed
A novel fabrication of poly(e-caprolactone) microspheres from blends of poly(e-caprolactone) and polyethylene glycols.
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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