Lycium barbarum and Ganoderma lucidum, highly valued Chinese medicinal fruit and mushroom, have attracted more and more attention because of the antitumour activities they have shown, and polysaccharides are considered their most important functional constituent. Forming new compounds of L. barbarum polysaccharides, isolated from dried L. barbarum fruits, and G. lucidum polysaccharides, derived...

PURPOSE OF STUDY To review the nature, extent, bioactivities, and clinical application of polysaccharides in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) especially as adjuvants in cancer treatment. METHODOLOGY Literature review. FINDINGS Many fungal- and plant-derived bioactive polysaccharides with a broad range of immunomodulatory activities are found in TCM. Some such polysaccharides have been dev...

We investigated the anti-tumour effect of polysaccharides from Solanum nigrum Linne, and its relationship with the immune function of tumour-bearing organisms. MTT assay was used to observe the effect of different doses of polysaccharides from Solanum nigrum Linne on proliferation of lymphocytes in tumour-bearing mice. ELISA assay was also used to detect the levels of IL-2 in mice, and a laser ...

Seaweeds, being prolific sources of bioactive components have garnered unprecedented interest in recent times. The complex polysaccharides from the brown, red and green seaweeds possess broad spectrum therapeutic properties. Especially, the sulfated polysaccharides, viz. fucans, carrageenans and ulvans have exhibited strong antioxidant, antitumor, immunostimulatory, anti-inflammatory, pulmonary...

Studies on structure and function of polysaccharides in biological systems classically involve sequence and compositional analyses, anomeric configuration, type of glycosidic linkage, and presence of substituents. Recent studies, however, indicates that other structural parameters, so far little explored, can directly influence the biological activity of microbial polysaccharides. Among these p...

The objective of this paper was to study the therapeutic effect of Stigma maydis polysaccharides in diabetic mice. Mouse models of types 1 and 2 diabetes were established. The body weight, food intake, water intake as well as blood sugar level and glucose tolerance of mice were measured. Stigma maydis polysaccharides can improve the symptoms of weight loss and polydipsia in diabetic mice, and h...

Polysaccharide is a natural macromolecular compound with complex, important and multifaceted biological activities. Some of polysaccharides have been marketed in China as drugs or healthy products. More studies confirm that the active ingredient of many traditional Chinese medicine exist in the form of polysaccharides. They play a role in disease therapy by activating immune cells and the compl...

Although Bacteroides fragilis accounts for only 0.5% of the normal human colonic flora, it is the anaerobic species most frequently isolated from intra-abdominal and other infections with an intestinal source. The capsular polysaccharides of B. fragilis are part of a complex of surface polysaccharides and are the organism's most important virulence factors in the formation of intra-abdominal ab...

In this paper, the position of crossing linkage between cell wall polysaccharides was studied by determining the digestibility of pectin-depleted walls, the contents of hydrocinamic acids and their dimmers in each fraction of elongated and non-elongated cells. The results showed that Ox. sol. fr. was composed mainly of pectin polysaccharides while 4K sol. fr. was composed both of pectin and hem...

The Golgi apparatus of plant cells is the site of assembly of glycoproteins, proteoglycans, and complex polysaccharides, but little is known about how the different assembly pathways are organized within the Golgi stacks. To study these questions we have employed immunocytochemical techniques and antibodies raised against the hydroxyproline-rich cell wall glycoprotein, extensin, and two types o...