Effect of Bucillamine on Free-Radical-Mediated Degradation of High-Molar-Mass Hyaluronan Induced in vitro by Ascorbic Acid and Cu(II) Ions

The bucillamine effect on free-radical-mediated degradation of high-molar-mass hyaluronan (HA) has been elucidated. As HA fragmentation is expected to decrease its dynamic viscosity, rotational viscometry was applied to follow the oxidative HA degradation. Non-isothermal chemiluminometry, thermogravimetry, differential scanning calorimetry, and size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) were applied to characterize resulting HA fragments. Although bucillamine completely inhibited the HA viscosity decrease caused by oxidative system, indicating HA protection from degradation, SEC analysis suggested that some other mechanisms leading to the bucillamine transformations without the decay of the viscosity may come into a play as well. Nonetheless, the link between the reduction of chemiluminescence intensity and disappearance of the differential scanning calorimetry exotherm at 270 degrees C for fragmented HAs indicates a particular role of the bucillamine in preventing the decrease of HA viscosity.