Conformation of the mucopolysaccharides. X-ray fibre diffraction of heparin.

Oriented films of the sodium salt of heparin crystallize in a triclinic unit cell. The X-ray diffraction results favour a tetrasaccharide covalent repeating sequence but the measured molecular repeat of 1.59nm is inconsistent with all alpha-(1-->4)(1ax-->4eq)-glycosidic linkages as generally accepted. Three models are proposed for the molecular shape of heparin, which depend on the chair conformation adopted by the hexuronic acid moieties. Model I has both uronic acids in the C1 chair form, model II has one uronic acid in each of the C1 and 1C chairs and model III has both in the 1C chair form. The merits of these models are discussed.