Laboratory of Biotechnology of Natural Polymers, Department of Biochemistry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal-RN, Brazil.
Mar Drugs. 2011 Jan 24;9(1):124-38. doi: 10.3390/md9010124.
Fucan is a term used to denominate a family of sulfated polysaccharides rich in sulfated l-fucose. We extracted six fucans from Canistrocarpus cervicornis by proteolytic digestion followed by sequential acetone precipitation. These heterofucans are composed mainly of fucose, glucuronic acid, galactose and sulfate. No polysaccharide was capable of prolonging prothrombin time (PT) at the concentration assayed. However, all polysaccharides prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT). Four sulfated polysaccharides (CC-0.3/CC-0.5/CC-0.7/CC-1.0) doubled aPTT with only 0.1 mg/mL of plasma, only 1.25-fold less than Clexane, a commercial low molecular weight heparin. Heterofucans exhibited total antioxidant capacity, low hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, good superoxide radical scavenging efficiency (except CC-1.0), and excellent ferrous chelating ability (except CC-0.3). These results clearly indicate the beneficial effect of C. cervicornis polysaccharides as anticoagulants and antioxidants. Further purification steps and additional studies on structural features as well as in vivo experiments are needed to test the viability of their use as therapeutic agents.
岩藻聚糖是一类富含硫酸化 l-岩藻糖的硫酸多糖的统称。我们通过蛋白水解消化后再进行连续的丙酮沉淀，从鹿角珊瑚中提取了六种岩藻聚糖。这些杂合岩藻聚糖主要由岩藻糖、葡萄糖醛酸、半乳糖和硫酸组成。在所检测的浓度下，没有一种多糖能延长凝血酶原时间（PT）。然而，所有多糖都能延长活化部分凝血活酶时间（aPTT）。四种硫酸化多糖（CC-0.3/CC-0.5/CC-0.7/CC-1.0）仅用 0.1mg/mL 的血浆就能将 aPTT 延长一倍，与商业低分子量肝素 Clexane 的效果仅相差 1.25 倍。杂合岩藻聚糖表现出总抗氧化能力、低羟基自由基清除活性、良好的超氧自由基清除效率（除 CC-1.0 外）和优异的亚铁螯合能力（除 CC-0.3 外）。这些结果清楚地表明，鹿角珊瑚多糖作为抗凝剂和抗氧化剂具有有益的作用。需要进一步的纯化步骤和对结构特征的进一步研究以及体内实验，以测试其作为治疗剂的可行性。
