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. 2015 May 6;6:201. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2015.00201

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Copyright © 2015 Misra, Hascall, Markwald and Ghatak.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Native polymeric HA and degraded HA fragments. High molecular weight (HMW ≥ 500 disaccharide units; [β-1, 4-GlcUA-β-1, 3-GlcNAc]n synthesized in the normal homeostatic condition is degraded by free radicals and hyaluronidases (HYAL1-2) during inflammation/tumorigenesis when tissue injury occurs. These fragments are ≤50 disaccharide units. As a result, the fragments of different molecular weights have different biological functions. For example, intermediate fragments (30–500 kDa) can stimulate cell proliferation while smaller fragments <50 kDa promote cell migration. HA oligosaccharides down to three disaccharides can still bind to CD44.