Publisher Summary Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is a powerful technique for structural investigation of chiral molecules. CD records the difference in absorption between left- and right- circularly polarized light, and the spectrum is the result of interactions among neighboring groups, hence the technique can be employed to determine the conformations and the configuration of asymmetric molecules. Most commercially available instruments can measure the CD of electronic absorption bands in the range of 1000–190 nm, in which nucleic acids and proteins have absorption bands, but unfortunately, sugars are transparent in this region. However, the immense biological importance of sugars on one hand and recent improvements in CD instrumentation on the other have stimulated interest in using this powerful technique for investigating the stereochemistry of sugar monomers, the configuration of intersaccharide linkages, the secondary structure of the polymers and the interaction of sugars with each other and other biological molecules.
