Antioxidant Activities And Immunomodulatory Effects Of Ginseng Polysaccharides Combined With Lactobacillus Plantarum Strains

Prebiotics can beneficial affects the host by stimulating growth activity of probiotics and has been received more and more attention. Numerous studies showed that non-digestible oligosaccharides and plant polysaccharides have good prebiotic effects. Therefore, to discovery new functional prebiotics is an important direction for research and development of prebiotics industrialization. In this study, ginseng polysaccharides and probiotic strains were used,the aim of this study was to investigate the prebiotic effect of ginseng polysaccharides and evaluate the function of ginseng polysaccharide combined with probiotic.The potential prebiotic properties of Panax ginseng polysaccharides were studied using ten strains of Lactobacillus plantarum isolated from traditional Chinese fermented foods. These probiotics showed different growth characteristics dependently on used extract and strain specificity. Neutral ginseng polysaccharides are having more potential than acidic polysaccharides as indicated by their prebiotic activity experiments. L. plantarum C88 showed higher cell densities and speed of growth on neutral polysaccharides. Lactic acid and short chain fatty acids(SCFA) at the end of fermentations were analysed using gas chromatography. Acetate was the chief SCFA produced and its amount varied from 0.55 to 1.18 mg/ml.The antioxidant activity of Panax ginseng polysaccharide combined with L. plantarum C88 was evaluated with the in vitro scavenging abilities on DPPH radicals, ABTS radicals, superoxide anion radical and ferrous ion-chelating ability. The results indicated that neutral and acidic Panax ginseng polysaccharides combined with L. plantarum C88, respectively, all have significant antioxidant activities, and acidic polysaccharide better than neutral polysaccharide. Furthermore, the in vivo antioxidant effect of acidic Panax ginseng polysaccharide combined with L. plantarum C88 strain in natural aging mice was checked. As results, acidic Panax ginseng polysaccharide combined with L. plantarum C88 strain inhibited the formation of malondialdehyde(MDA), and raised the activities of superoxide dismutase(SOD), glutathione peroxidase(GSH-Px), catalase(CAT) and total antioxidant capacities(T-AOC) in a dose-dependent manner.In vivo immunomodulatory assay, different doses of samples were orally administrated in a cyclophosphamide(CY) induced immunosuppression mice,through assay of phagocytic index, delayed-type hypersensitivity test, and determined the levels of some immune parameters in serum, to evaluated the immunity activity of ginseng acidic polysaccharide combined with L. plantarum C88. The results suggested that ginseng acidic polysaccharide combined with C88 could significantly enhanced the phagocytic capacity and delayed-type hypersensitivity of immunosuppressed mice, and could enhance serum interleukin-2(IL-2), interleukin-4(IL-4), Interferon-γ(INF-γ), tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α), immunoglobulin-g(Ig G) and reduced interleukin-10(IL-10) levels in a dose-dependent manner.These results demonstrated that ginseng polysaccharides have potential prebiotic activity, the ginseng polysaccharides combined with L. plantarum C88 strain had significant antioxidant and immunity activity.