Role of the pH on Hyaluronan Behavior in Aqueous Solution

In this paper, we have examined the behavior of hyaluronan solutions at different pH values. A slight degradation is observed in acidic conditions (pH = 1.6) and basic medium (pH = 12.6) from molecular weight distribution analysis, but the rheological behavior is relatively not influenced much by the pH at the exclusion of two domains: around pH = 2.5, a gel-like behavior is shown and is attributed to cooperative interchain interactions due to the reduction of the polymer net charge and may be the protonation of the acetamido groups; for pH > 12, the decrease of viscosity is mainly attributed to a reduction of the stiffness of the polymeric backbone in alkaline conditions due to the partial breakage of the H-bond network.