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Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are natural, linear and negatively charged heteropolysaccharides which are incident in every mammalian tissue. They consist of repeating disaccharide units, which are composed of either sulfated or non-sulfated monosaccharides. Depending on tissue types, GAGs exhibit structural heterogeneity such as the position and degree of sulfation or within their disaccharide units composition being heparin, heparan sulfate, chondroitine sulfate, dermatan sulfate, keratan sulfate, and hyaluronic acid. They are covalently linked to a core protein (proteoglycans) or as free chains (hyaluronan). GAGs affect cell properties and functions either by direct interaction with cell receptors or by sequestration of growth factors. These evidences of divert biological roles of GAGs make their characterization at cell and tissue levels of importance. Thus, non-invasive techniques are interesting to investigate, to qualitatively and quantitatively characterize GAGs in vitro in order to use them as diagnostic biomarkers and/or as therapeutic targets in several human diseases including cancer. Infrared and Raman microspectroscopies and imaging are sensitive enough to differentiate and classify GAG types and subtypes in spite of their close molecular structures. Spectroscopic markers characteristic of reference GAG molecules were identified. Beyond these investigations of the standard GAG spectral signature, infrared and Raman spectral signatures of GAG were searched in complex biological systems like cells. The aim of the present review is to describe the implementation of these complementary vibrational spectroscopy techniques, and to discuss their potentials, advantages and disadvantages for GAG analysis. In addition, this review presents new data as we show for the first time GAG infrared and Raman spectral signatures from conditioned media and live cells, respectively.

Fibromodulin from bovine articular cartilage has been subjected to lectin affinity chromatography by Sambucus nigra lectin which binds α(2-6)- linked N-acetylneuraminic acid, and the structure of the keratan sulphate in the binding and non-binding fractions examined by keratanase II digestion and subsequent high pH anion exchange chromatography. It has been confirmed that the keratan sulphate chains attached to fibromodulin isolated from bovine articular cartilage may have the chain terminating N-acetylneuraminic acid residue α(2-3)- or α(2-6)-linked to the adjacent galactose residue. Although the abundance of α(2-6)-linked N-acetylneuraminic acid (ca. 22%) is such that this could cap one of the four chains in almost all fibromodulin molecules, it was found that ca. 34% of the fibromodulin proteoglycan molecules from bovine articular cartilage were capped exclusively with α(2-3)-linked N-acetylneuraminic acid. The remainder of the fibromodulin proteoglycans, which bound to the lectin had a mixture of α(2-3)- and α(2-6)-linked N-acetylneuraminic acid capping structures. The keratan sulphates attached to fibromodulin molecules capped exclusively with α(2-3)- linked N-acetylneuraminic acid were found to have a higher level of galactose sulphation than those from fibromodulin with both α(2-3)- and α(2-6)-linked N-acetylneuraminic acid caps, which bound to the Sambucus nigra lectin. In addition, both pools contained chains of similar length (ca. 8-9 disaccharides). Both also contained α(1-3)-linked fucose, showing that this feature does not co-distribute with α(2-6)-linked N-acetylneuraminic acid, although these two features are present only in mature articular cartilage. These data show that there are discrete populations of fibromodulin within articular cartilage, which may have differing impacts upon tissue processes.

The repeat region and chain caps of the N-linked keratan sulphates attached to bovine tracheal cartilage fibromodulin were fragmented by digestion with keratanase II, and the oligosaccharides generated were isolated by strong anion-exchange chromatography. Each of these oligosaccharides has been examined by both HPAE chromatography and high field 1H-NMR spectroscopy. All of the capping oligosaccharides isolated terminated with alpha(2-6)-linked N-acetyl-neuraminic acid chain terminators, nor fucose alpha(1-3)-linked to N-acetylglucosamine were found. The keratan sulphate chains were short, with average lengths of five to seven disaccharides, and the level of galactose sulphation varied along the length of the chain. The repeat region and chain cap were confirmed as having the following general structure: [formula: see text]. This study has identified a novel structure in fibromodulin, namely a cap containing a sulphated galactose adjacent to a non-reducing terminal N-acetyl-neuraminic acid. We have also confirmed that the general structure of the repeat units and chain caps of N-linked keratan sulphate attached to fibromodulin isolated from bovine tracheal cartilage, is similar to that of O-linked keratan sulphate chains attached to aggrecan from non-articular cartilage. However, there are important differences in chain lengths and sulphation patterns.

Two discrete peptido-keratan sulphate fragments were isolated via chondroitinase ABC and trypsin digestion of a proteoglycan aggregate fraction prepared from bovine femoral head cartilage (six year old animals). The larger fragments (K(av) = 0.07, CL-6B) contained peptides substituted with several keratan sulphate (KS) chains from the KS-rich region of the proteoglycan and the smaller fragments (K(av) = 0.5, CL-6B) contained peptides with, perhaps, only one KS chain and the stubs of post-chondroitinase-treated chondroitin sulphate chains. The two peptido-KS samples and the KS chains derived from these by alkaline borohydride reduction were characterised by 13C-NMR spectroscopy. The two populations of KS chains were also examined by chromatography (Sephadex G-75), and keratanase digestion followed by chromatography on Bio-Gel P-10. From the results it was concluded that the KS chains from the two major trypsin-derived peptido-KS fragments had similar sulphation levels, distributions of hydrodynamic sizes and susceptibilities to keratanase.