Sugars as Osmolytes in Protein Stabilization: A Study of Sucrose and Its Isomers

Osmolytes are a class of biomolecules that help maintain biomolecular structure and stability in response to environmental changes. They do not interact with macromolecules in an unfavorable way that could disrupt cellular function [1-2]. This study looks at a common natural disaccharide osmolyte, sucrose, and its isomers in an attempt to characterize their ability to protect against thermal denaturation. We used optical spectroscopy tools including circular dichroism and optical rotation. In addition, we looked at some uncommon disaccharides that had not been previously investigated. We confirmed strong thermal enhancement of protein structure in the presence of sucrose, but were unable to test the ability of its isomers to protect against thermal denaturation due to unexpected optical activity of the solutions. We present an evaluation of optical activity of these molecules.