Polysaccharide Shapes: Outline Studies in Biology

1 Basic ideas about molecular shape.- 1.1 Shapes of biopolymers.- 1.2 Conformational principles.- 1.3 Shapes in equilibrium.- 2 The building units.- 2.1 Pyranose (six membered) forms.- 2.2 Furanose (five membered) forms.- 2.3 Other forms.- 2.4 Conformation and configuration: isomers and derivatives.- 2.5 Sugar shapes in hydrolysis of carbohydrate chains.- 2.6 Prediction of shapes.- 2.7 Natural building units.- 3 The linkages.- 3.1 Linkage structures and patterns.- 3.2 Linkage conformation.- 3.3 Chain conformation: order versus disorder.- 4 Simple carbohydrate chains of the periodic type.- 4.1 Conformational families.- 4.2 Occurrence, properties and function of the ribbon family.- 4.3 Occurrence, properties and function of the hollow helix family.- 4.4 Loosely jointed linkages and chains.- 5 More complex carbohydrate chains.- 5.1 Periodic chains with mixed linkages.- 5.2 Interrupted chain sequences.- 5.3 Aperiodic sequences.- References.