The antioxidant activity of neutral and acidic polysaccharides from Panax ginseng on Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

Ginseng polysaccharide is a kind of polymer in ginseng. According to the composition, it can be divided into neutral polysaccharide and acidic polysaccharide. It has been reported that, ginseng polysaccharide has lot of pharmacological effects, such as immunomodulation, anti-tumor, anti-oxidant activity, and so on. Because of the large molecular weight and complex structure, many effects have not been fully studied. In this study, we focused on the antioxidant activity comparison between neutral and acidic polysaccharide from Panax ginseng.

A neutral polysaccharide (WGPN) and an acidic polysaccharide (WGPA) were extracted from Panax ginseng by DEAE cellulose ion-exchange chromatography. Their structures were characterized by chemical composition analysis, high performance gel permeation chromatography (HPGPC), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), and liquid chromatography with diode-array detector (LC-DAD). Further, their antioxidant activities were investigated both in vitro and in vivo. Results showed that WGPA had higher uronic acid content and larger average molecular weight than WGPN. Compared with WGPN, WGPA exhibited higher scavenging activities against ABTS and hydrogen peroxide free radical, higher reducing power and higher metal chelating activity in vitro, as well as preferably inhibitory effect on lipid peroxidation in the mode of Caenorhabditis elegans.