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Enzymatic grafting of a natural product onto chitosan to confer water solubility under basic conditions

Chitosan is a natural biopolymer whose rich amine functionality confers water solubility at low pH. At higher pH's (greater than 6. 5), the amines are deprotonated and chitosan is insoluble. To attain water solubility under basic conditions we enzymatically grafted the hydrophilic compound chlorogenic acid onto chitosan. Despite its name, chlorogenic acid is a nonchlorinated phenolic natural product that has carboxylic acid and hydroxyl functionality. The enzyme in this study was tyrosinase, which converts a wide range of phenolic substrates into electrophilic o-quinones. The o-quinones are freely diffusible and can undergo reaction with the nucleophilic amino groups of chitosan. Using slightly acidic conditions (pH = 6), it was possible to modify chitosan under homogeneous conditions. When the amount of chlorogenic acid used in the modification reaction exceeded 30% relative to chitosan's amino groups, the modified chitosan was observed to be soluble under both acidic and basic conditions, and to have a pH window of insolubility at near neutral pH. 1H NMR spectra confirmed that chitosan was chemically modified, although the degree of modification was low. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.