Isolation, structural characterizations and bioactivities of exopolysaccharides produced by Bacillus licheniformis.

Extraction polysaccharide from microorganism is a research hotspot. In this work, a new type of water-soluble exopolysaccharides (EPS) was isolated from Bacillus licheniformis. Firstly, response surface methodology (RSM), based on a three-level, three-factor, was used to determine optimum conditions for EPS extraction. And RSM analysis indicated optimum condition was at the temperature of 8 °C for 10.44 h with ethanol at a concentration of 79.22% (v/v), the maximum yield of EPS was 3.07 g/mL. Secondly, EPS were seperated using DEAE-Sepharose Fast Flow column chromatography and acquired two polysaccharide fractions, BL-P1 and BL-P2. BL-P1 had larger molecular weight than BL-P2 from structural analyses, because of higher content of mannose, ribose, glucuronic acid, galactose, arabinose and fructose in BL-P2. Moreover, the characterization of BL-P1 and BL-P2 was investigated with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the results indicated that EPS was mainly composed of→3)-α-d-Galp-(1→, →3,5)-α-l-Araf-(1→, →3)-β-d-Glcp-(1→, β-d-Glcp-(1 → and→4)-β-l-Fucp-(1 → 4)-β-d-Xylp-(1 → 4)-α-l-Rhap (1 → 3) -β-d-Manp-(4 → residues. In vitro antioxidant activity assay, EPS exhibited potent quenching capacities on hydroxyl and 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, BL-P2 had higher activity than BL-P1 in inhibiting α-amylase and α-glucosidase, which would have potential to be applied in nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries.