Abstract
Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis is a type of red alga that contains seaweed polysaccharide agar. In this study, a novel non-agar seaweed polysaccharide fraction named GCP (short of crude polysaccharide obtained from Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis) was isolated from Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis. Structural analysis showed that GCP shows triple helical chain conformation when dissolved in water and has many branches and long side chains. Also, 1→3 linkage is the major linkage and the sugar structures are galactopyranose configurations linked by β-type glycosidic linkages. Two macromolecular substance fractions (GCP-1 and GCP-2) were purified by DEAE Sepharose Fast Flow column chromatography. Moreover, a splenocyte damage assay and splenocyte proliferation assay were used to analyse the bioactivities of GCP, GCP-1 and GCP-2. It was demonstrated that polysaccharides could protect splenocyte damaged by H2O2; GCP-2 shows a greatest protection rate, that is, 92.8%, which significantly enhanced the splenocyte proliferation, and GCP showed the highest proliferation rate, 9.30%. The results suggested that this type of novel non-agar polysaccharide displayed remarkable antioxidant and immunomodulatory activities and early alkali treatment could decrease the activities. It may represent a potential material for health food and clinical medicines.
Highlights
Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis, belonging to the Rhodophyta family, is an economically important red alga of China that grows widely along the coast of Shandong province (Tseng 2001)
The yield of non-agar polysaccharide GCP was approximately 1.63% calculated as the weight of semi-dried G. lemaneiformis
The polysaccharide was first fractionated through an anion-exchange chromatography of cellulose DEAE-FF to obtain two independent elution fractions of GCP-1 and GCP-2 (Fig. 1); the yields were 29.82% and 38.18%, respectively
Summary
Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis, belonging to the Rhodophyta family, is an economically important red alga of China that grows widely along the coast of Shandong province (Tseng 2001). Fan et al (2012a, b) reported that polysaccharides from Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis have in vitro and in vivo immunomodulatory activities and are mainly composed of galactose. Yang et al (2014) extracted crude polysaccharides from Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis, purified by DEAE52 cellulose chromatography and Sephadex G-100 size-exclusion chromatography and analysed the partial characterizations. There is a type of non-agar polysaccharide in G. lemaneiformis, which is always treated as waste during agar processing. This type of polysaccharide may show great activities, which have not been analysed to date
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