The Polysaccharides From The Flowers Of Panax Ginseng C.A. Meyer: Isolation, Characterization And Effect On Lymphocyte Proliferation

We now reported the total fractionation of the water-soluble ginseng polysaccharidesby a combination of anion-exchange and gel permeation chromatography. We also showedsome macromolecular features of these fractions and the initial immunological results.Dry ginseng flower was extracted with water, precipitated with ethanol and ginsengflower water-soluble polysaccharide (GFL) was obtained. The HPLC results showed thatGFL mainly contained Gal, GalUA, Glc and Ara. After GFL was loaded on DEAECellulosecolumn, one neutral fraction (GFLN) and four acidic fractions (GFLA-1, GFLA-2,GFLA-3 and GFLA-4) were obtained. Further,GFLN was fractionated into four fraction(GFLN-I, GFLN-II, GFLN-III and GFLN-S) by ethanol precipitation. GFLA-2 wasseparated by DEAE-Sepharose FF chromatography to give five fractions (GFLA-2Ⅰ,GFLA-2Ⅱ,GFLA-2Ⅲ,GFLA-2Ⅳand GFLA-2Ⅴ), elutes by different NaCl concentration.High performance gel permeation chromatography (HGPC) showed that GFLN-Ⅱwashomogenous with molecular weight 9×103. High performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) indicated that GFLN-Ⅱwas rich in Gal with little Glc and Ara. Structuralcharacterizations of GFLN-Ⅱusing IR, periodate oxidation, Smith degradation,methylation analysis and 13C NMR shows that Gal is main in the form ofβ-D-(1→4) withlittleβ-D-(1→6), Glc is in the form ofβ-D-(1→4) and littleβ-D-(1→6), Man in the form of1→3,4, 1→2,4, 1→3,6.In this paper, the ginseng flower fractions were tested on their mitogen activity ofConA and LPS induced lymphocytes in vivo. GFLA-2 and GFLN-Ⅱfractions stimulatedthe proliferation of both T and B lymphocytes. GFLA-4 significantly enhanced the Tlymphocyte proliferation on the mitogen activity of ConA. Testing on their mitogen activityof ConA and LPS induced lymphocytes in vitro was also detected and only GFLA-4induced the mitogen activity of ConA induced lymphocytes on T-cells.