Protection of protein secondary structure by saccharides of different molecular weights during freeze-drying.

The protective effects of saccharides with various molecular weights (glucose, maltose, maltotriose, maltotetraose, maltopentaose, maltoheptaose, dextran 1060, dextran 4900, and dextran 10200) against lyophilization-induced structural perturbation of model proteins (BSA, ovalbumin) were studied. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis of the proteins in initial solutions and freeze-dried solids indicated that maltose conferred the greatest protection against secondary structure change. The structure-stabilizing effect of maltooligosaccharides decreased in increasing the number of saccharide units. Larger molecules of dextran also showed a smaller structure-stabilizing effect. Increasing the effective saccharide molecular size by a borate–saccharide complexation reduced the protein structure-stabilizing effect of all of the saccharides except glucose. The results indicate that the larger saccharide molecules, and/or the complex formation with borate ion, reduce the free and accessible hydroxyl groups to interact with and stabilize the protein structure by a water-substitution mechanism.