3.6. Structural determination of oligosaccharides by NMR
The chemical shifts around d 1–1.5 ppm in the1H-NMR spectra of fraction I, II, III and IV (Supplementary Fig. 1) are the characteristic signals of the methyl protons of the L-fucose residue (Pereira, Mulloy, & Mourão, 1999). The other proton and carbon signals of the oligosaccharides in 1-dimensional spectra were assigned by using 2-dimensional spectra including COSY, TOCSY and HMQC. The assignment of chemical shifts in the1H and13C NMR spectra
are listed in Table 2. The H-1 chemical shifts of A0residues in all purified fractions were at 4.58 or 4.59 ppm, and their coupling constants were about 6.00 Hz. It was confirmed that the A’ residues are b-anomers. Meanwhile, the H-1 chemical shifts of the other residues were at 5.08–5.42 ppm, and their coupling constants were about 3.60 Hz. This indicated that all residues except A0are a-anomers. Furthermore, according to the integration of the anomeric signals in the 1H NMR spectrum, the relative amounts of residue A0and residue A were approximately 2:1, which was identical to the pattern of the fucose residues at the reducing terminals. It could be concluded that A0and A are the different anomers of the reducing terminal residue.
O-sulphation causes the chemical shift of oxymethine protons downfield by 0.4–0.8 ppm (Yamada, Yoshida, Sugiura, & Sugahara, 1992). Compared to the corresponding chemical shifts of other residues, the H-2 and H-4 chemical shifts of residue B in fraction I, residue C in fraction II, residue C and residue F in fraction III, and residue D and residue G in fraction IV were shifted downfield by 0.63–0.79 ppm. This indicated that all of these residues are 2-O-sulphated and 4-O-sulphated.