Dedicated to Professor Waldemur Adam on the occasion of his 60th birthday(1 1 N.97)As previously shown, oligo-and poly(p-hydroxyalkanoates) have a high tendency to form lamellar crystallites with ca. 50-8, thickness which corresponds to chain lengths of 16 units (Fig. f). To have monodisperse model compounds, we have now prepared bicyclic derivatives with three parallel (27-29) or two parallel and an antiparallel chain (68-70) consisting of up to 16 3-hydroxybutanoate (3-HB) units. We also prepared dendritic compounds (71 -75,82-85) containing oligo(3-HB) chains which cannot possibly be arranged as in the lamellue; the branching units were prepared from trimesic acid (= benzene-l,3,5-tricarboxylic acid). So far, none of the prepared samples formed crystals or contained crystalline domains which would have been suitable for single-crystal or powder-diffraction X-ray analysis. The terminally deprotected dendrimers (74,75, and 85) are multi-anionic (up to 12 peripheral CO,H groups) and biodegradable. The macromolecular HB derivatives (molecular weight up to 10150 Da) have been fully characterized by IR, 'H-and I3C-NMR, [a],, and elemental analysis. Especially important is the analysis by mass spectrometry with the MALDI-TOF technique (Fig. 2), proving that the products are monodisperse; application of a new variation of this MS method (post source decay = PSD or fragment analysis by structural rime of flight = FASTTM) allows for the observation of metastable fragment ions and, thus, is a tool for structural oligomer analysis (Fig. 3). 1. Introduction. -Poly(P-hydroxyalkanoates) (PHAs), an ubiquitous class of biopolymers [2] have been the subject of research in our group for many years [3]. Besides their occurrence as a high-molecular-weight storage material (sPHA) in microorganisms [4] PHAs have also been found in a low-molecular-weight form (cPHA). Reusch and coworkers have shown that low-molecular-weight poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutanoic acid] (P(3-HB) = PHB), ca. 150 units) and CaPP, (calcium polyphosphate) form a complex which may function as an ion channel in genetically competent E. coZi cells [5] [6]. P(3-HB) has also been detected in eucaryotic cells, in human aorta tissue [6], and in blood plasma [5b]. From most of these sources, cPHB and its homolog cPHV (V = valerate = pentanoate) could be extracted with CHC1, and characterized by NMR spectroscopy [6]. Most recently, however, much larger quantities of PHB and PHV have been detected (by degradation to crotonic acid (= but-2-enoic acid) at higher temperature and/or larger reaction times [7], or by transesterifying conversion to ethyl (R)-3-