Biotechnologically produced chitosans with nonrandom acetylation patterns differ from conventional chitosans in properties and activities

Sruthi Sreekumar, Jasper Wattjes, Anna Niehues, Tamara Mengoni, Ana C. Mendes, Edwin R. Morris, Francisco M. Goycoolea and Bruno M. Moerschbacher ()
Additional contact information
Sruthi Sreekumar: University of Münster
Jasper Wattjes: University of Münster
Anna Niehues: University of Münster
Tamara Mengoni: University of Münster
Ana C. Mendes: National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark
Edwin R. Morris: University College Cork
Francisco M. Goycoolea: University of Münster
Bruno M. Moerschbacher: University of Münster

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract Chitosans are versatile biopolymers with multiple biological activities and potential applications. They are linear copolymers of glucosamine and N-acetylglucosamine defined by their degree of polymerisation (DP), fraction of acetylation (FA), and pattern of acetylation (PA). Technical chitosans produced chemically from chitin possess defined DP and FA but random PA, while enzymatically produced natural chitosans probably have non-random PA. This natural process has not been replicated using biotechnology because chitin de-N-acetylases do not efficiently deacetylate crystalline chitin. Here, we show that such enzymes can partially N-acetylate fully deacetylated chitosan in the presence of excess acetate, yielding chitosans with FA up to 0.7 and an enzyme-dependent non-random PA. The biotech chitosans differ from technical chitosans both in terms of physicochemical and nanoscale solution properties and biological activities. As with synthetic block co-polymers, controlling the distribution of building blocks within the biopolymer chain will open a new dimension of chitosan research and exploitation.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34483-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-34483-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34483-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().