A narrative review on conformational structure characterization of natural polysaccharides

Polysaccharides are structurally varied groups of biological macromolecules which broadly occurrence in nature. The structural features like detailed glycosidic linkages, monosaccharide composition, molecular weight (MW), and chain conformation could impact their functions. This paper attempts to review the current development on conformational characterization of polysaccharides and includes the influence of chain conformations on their biological activities. The chain conformations characterization methods mainly include static and dynamic light scattering, multiple angle laser light scattering (MALLS) detector, high-performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC), viscosity analysis in the base of the theory of dilute polymer solution, circular dichroism (CD), Congo red test, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), atomic force microscopy (AFM), single molecular AFM, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, HPSEC-MALLS analysis, as well as HPSEC-MALLS-refractive index (RI)-viscosity detector (VS) system. This would be also helpful for development and application of polysaccharides from different natural sources.