Extraction and deproteinization of pumpkin polysaccharide.

Extraction and deproteinization methods of polysaccharide from pumpkin were studied. We extracted crude polysaccharide by the method of hot water extraction. The percentages of deproteinization and polysaccharide loss were compared as indexes using the trichloroacetic acid (TCA) method, the NaCl method, the and CaCl(2) method, respectively. The results showed that the TCA method exhibited the lowest percentage of deproteinization, and a little higher percentage of polysaccharide loss than the other two methods. The CaCl(2) method excelled over the NaCl method in deproteinization.