The uronic acid and aminosugar in the disaccharide are d-glucuronic acid and d-N-acetylglucosamine, and are linked together through alternating beta-1,4 and beta-1,3 glycosidic bonds (see Figure 1). Both sugars are spatially related to glucose which in the beta configuration allows all of its bulky groups (the hydroxyls, the carboxylate moiety and the anomeric carbon on the adjacent sugar) to be in sterically favorable equatorial positions while all of the small hydrogen atoms occupy the less sterically favourable axial positions. Thus, the structure of the disaccharide is energetically very stable.