AMINO-ACIDS IN CHITIN - GLUCAN COMPLEX OF ASPERGILLUS-NIGER

Deproteinated A. niger biomass contains several covalently bound amino acids. The most abundant are arginine, serine, and proline in molar r atio of 3:2:2. One order of magnitude less is the amount of valine, ph enylalanine, leucine and glycine. On deacetylation and separation of c hitosan from glucan, the main three amino acids remain bound predomina ntly to chitosan, whereas the hydrophobic amino acids accompany mainly glucan. The presence of arginine could be the cause of stronger basic ity of fungal chitosan compared to polyglucosamine.