Antioxidant activities and mechanisms of polysaccharides

Abstract Polysaccharide, as one of the effective components of traditional Chinese medicine, has the activities of anti‐oxidation, anti‐virus, improving immunity and so on. Chinese herbal polysaccharides have a wide range of sources. It is found that polysaccharides in many plants and microorganisms have significant antioxidant effects, mainly through the endogenous antioxidant stress Nrf2/ARE pathway to regulate the expression of downstream antioxidant enzymes. These antioxidant enzymes can further block the free radical chain reaction, thus reducing the generation of free radicals. Secondly, by inhibiting the expression of iNOS mRNA and reducing NO production, it can significantly increase the antioxidant capacity and reduce oxidative stress injury. Polysaccharides are rich in natural resources, their multi‐channel, multi‐target, multi‐effect, and other characteristics have made great progress in antioxidants.