EVIDENCE FOR INTERMOLECULAR BINDING BETWEEN DEACETYLATED ACETAN AND THE GLUCOMANNAN KONJAC MANNAN

Binary mixtures of deacetylated acetan and konjac mannan form thermore versible gels under conditions for which the individual components do not gel. Such synergistic behaviour is normally attributed to intermol ecular binding between the two polysaccharides. X-ray diffraction data obtained from oriented fibres prepared from deacetylated acetan-konja c mannan gels provides direct evidence for intermolecular binding betw een the two polysaccharides. The novel heterotypic junction zones appe ar to be six-fold helices with a pitch of 5.6 +/- 0.1 nm. (C) 1998 Pub lished by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.