Chondroitin Sulfate

Chondroitin sulfate belongs to a family of complex polysaccharides called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). Chondroitin sulfate consists of a long chain of repeating units of disaccharides called chondrosines. These chondrosines are composed of D-glucuronic acid and D-Galactosamine.
Depending on where these chondrosine units bind to each other determines which kind of chondroitin you have. Chondroitin sulfate A (also called chondroitin 4-sulfate) is the most numerous and chondroitin sulfate C (chondroitin 6-sulfate).
Depending on how the chondroitin sulfate is prepared, there can be anywhere from 15 to 150 of these repeating chondrosine units. The commercially available chondroitin products are a mixture of chondroitin A and C.
The major source of chondroitin sulfate commercially is from the bovine cartilage ,Chicken cartilage and Porcine cartilage.Another, rather expensive source is shark cartilage.