Abstract
The traditional method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for monosaccharide component analysis with pretreatment of acetylation is described with slight modifications and verified in detail in this paper. It was then successfully applied to the quantitative analysis of component monosaccharides in polysaccharides extracted from the pine cones. The results demonstrated that the three pine cone polysaccharides all consisted of ribose, rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, glucose and galactose in different molar ratios. According to the recovery experiment, the described method was proved accurate and practical for the analysis of pine cone polysaccharides, meeting the need in the field of chemical analysis of Pinus plants. Furthermore; the chemical characteristics, such as neutral sugar, uronic acids, amino acids, molecular weights, and antioxidant activities of the polysaccharides were investigated by chemical and instrumental methods. The results showed that the chemical compositions of the polysaccharides differed from each other, especially in the content of neutral sugar and uronic acid. In the antioxidant assays, the polysaccharide fractions exhibited effective scavenging activities on ABTS radical and hydroxyl radical, with their antioxidant capabilities decreasing in the order of PKP > PAP > PSP. Therefore, although the polysaccharide fractions had little effect on superoxide radical scavenging, they still have potential to be developed as natural antioxidant agents in functional foods or medicine.
Highlights
The genus Pinus is one of the most widely distributed genera of trees in the Northern hemisphere, encompassing nearly 100 species [1]
According to the procedure as described in the experimental section, three polysaccharide fractions were successfully isolated from pine cones of P. koraiensis, P. armandii and P. sylvestris var. mongolica by water extraction and ethanol precipitation, and purified by trichloroacetic acid and activated carbon
The band towards 1750 cm−1 was attributed to stretching vibration of C=O in the protonated carboxylic acid, which resulted from the presence of uronic acids
Summary
The genus Pinus (family Pinaceae) is one of the most widely distributed genera of trees in the Northern hemisphere, encompassing nearly 100 species [1]. Even though the alditol acetates method has been used for analysis of monosaccharide components for a long time, it was mostly employed for determination of carbohydrate profiles of bacterial sugars, for trace detection of bacteria or their constituents in complex clinical or environmental matrices, or to determine their physiological status [13,14,15], and seldom used in analysis of plant polysaccharides. This derivatization method was earlier investigated in the field of wood for analysis of sugar mixtures resulting from the hydrolysis of southern pine wood pulps [16]. All the information provided here will contribute to better utilization of materials from pine cones as novel medical plant products
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