Owl monkey vitreous: A novel model for hyaluronic acid structural studies

Circular dichroism (CD) studies have been made on hyaluronic acid (HA) obtained from dialyzed owl monkey vitreous. The protein content of these samples is low enough not to interfere with the CD measurements of hyaluronic acid. The ellipticity values of vitreous HA are higher than those of HA from other tissues, indicating a higher degree of preferred order. Since the purification procedures involve only dialysis, the owl monkey vitreous can be a model tissue for structural studies of HA close to its native state.