Solubilization of oligosaccharides into chloroform by their incorporation into polystyrene as pendant groups

Solubilization of hydrophilic saccharide chains into organic solvents has been attempted by incorporating saccharide-substituted styrene unit into polystyrene main chain. Lactose-, maltopentaose, and amylose-substituted styrene monomers were copolymerized with styrene. Resulting chloroform-soluble copolymers were characterized, and structural formation was investigated. Copolymers of lactose-substituted styrene and maltopentaose-substituted styrene with styrene were dissolved into chloroform. The chloroform-soluble polymers contained about 12 disaccharide lactose chains or 1.7 maltopentaose chains as the pendant groups in one polystyrene molecule. Chloroform-insoluble methyl orange was dissolved into chloroform with the help of chloroform-soluble polystyrene having some saccharide chains. On the other hand, when an amylose-substituted styrene unit was inserted in a polystyrene chain, the resulting polymer became insoluble into chloroform. Amylose polysaccharide of DP_n = ∼24 was not dissolved into chloroform by this method.