Structure, anticoagulant and cytotoxic activity of a sulfated polysaccharide from green seaweed .

In this article, chemical structure and conformation in an aqueous solution of a new sulfated polysaccharide, P, extracted from green seaweed were elucidated by SEC-MALL, IR, NMR and SAXS. The results indicated that the obtained polysaccharide is a sulfated arabinogalactan with a molecular weight of 223 kDa, and is mainly composed of →3,6)-α-D-Gal4S→ and →2)-α-L-Ara→ connecting together through 1→3 glycoside linkages. It has a broken rod-like conformation in solution with estimated as 0.43 nm from SAXS measurements. The polysaccharide exhibited a notable anticoagulant activity measured by the assays of activated partial thromboplastintime, thrombintime and prothrombine time as well as a significant cytotoxic activity against hepatocellular, human breast cancer, and cervical cancer cell lines.