Hydroxylysine Glycosides in Human Urine

Hydroxylysyl-galactosyl-glucose (HGG) and hydroxylysyl-galactose (HG) were isolated from normal human urine and shown to be identical with hydroxylysine glycosides (OHLG's) whose structure had been elucidated in other laboratories. We devised a procedure for separating the OHLG's from many other urinary constituents by preliminary fractionation on a column of Sephadex. The OHLG's in the fractions so obtained were then isolated, uncontaminated with other ninhydrin-positive components, in a single pass through an analytical cation-exchange column equipped for splitting the effluent stream. In addition, a procedure was devised for determining as little as 10-9 mol of the OHLG's in 100 µl of filtrate (corresponding to 83.3 µl, of urine) on standard ion-exchange chromatographic amino acid analyzers. In normal adult urine, 1.5, µmol of each glycoside was present per 100 mg of creatinine; the molar ratio of HHG to HG was about 1.1 to 1.2. Each was present in plasma in about 400- to 500-fold smaller concentration than in urine. After surgical fusion of the spine, excretion of OHLG's increased and the ratio of HGG to HG decreased, changes we interpreted as indicating a more rapid bone-collagen turnover consequent to surgical damage.