Sugars play a role in everyday life from food to medicine and much more. Sugars can form polymer chains with different lengths and degrees of branching that can alter their physical and chemical properties. In Application Note 8: Polysaccharide Chain Analysis we measure length and branching of polysaccharides using the Spinsolve benchtop NMR spectrometer. The spectrum of panose below shows possible shifts for the H-1 proton of the glucose unit in a polysaccharide chain.

H-1 protons at the reducing end can be either the alpha or beta rotamer and are observed as NMR resonances at 5.25 or 4.7 ppm, respectively. Within the chain or at the non-reducing end the H-1 protons can have a (1-4)- bond for a linear chain linkages or a (1-6)- bond for branching points. These can be observed at 5.37 or 5.00 ppm, respectively. It is possible to determine chain length and degree of branching by comparing the integrals of the each resonance.

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