Properties of Charged Polysaccharides in Solution by Gel Permeation Chromatography

Gel Permeation chromatography uses specially designed columns to separate solvents by size. Separating solvents by size allows the use of detectors to measure the solvents by light scattering, viscometer, refractive index, infrared. We are using Gel Permeation to characterize polymers in solution. The polymers are Heparin, Chitosan and Hyalurolan. These polymers were picked because of their biomedical applications. We are mixing the polymers into acetate buffer at set conditions that change based on concentration and pH. We then inject them at a known concentration at different injection volumes. The different injection volumes allows for calculations of dn/dc which is the change in refractive index for a given concentration. Molecular Weight then is calculated from the dn/dc value this allows us to check and make sure the data we are receiving is accurate. Mark Houlwink parameters are also calculated leading to the structure of the polymer in solution, whether it is a rigid rod, random coil, or globule. This is data correlates with other projects in the lab such as making polyelectrolyte multi-layers and will lead to experiments with trying to grow proteins. Also we will look to see how these polymers vary in when added to different buffer.