High performance liquid chromatographic strategy for the analysis of exopolysaccharides extracted from pathogenic bacteria.

A high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method has been developed to permit the rapid comparison of acidic polysaccharides of diverse compositions and the sensitive determination of their constituents. It is based on two combined analyses of the polysaccharide hydrolysates--a separation of the released compounds by ion-moderated partition chromatography with UV detection at two wavelengths and a separation of the sugar dansylhydrazine derivatives by reversed phase chromatography. The former permits identification and quantitation of uronic and carboxylic acids, the latter permits more sensitive and specific determination of the neutral aldoses. Some bacterial exopolysaccharides have been used to demonstrate the validity of this HPLC procedure for the chemical characterization of uronic acid-containing polysaccharides. This method appears to be useful for studying capsular polysaccharides, which are involved in the evasion of phagocytosis by pathogenic bacteria.