Isolation, purification, structural analysis and coagulatory activity of water-soluble polysaccharides from Ligustrum lucidum Ait flowers

In this study, Ligustrum lucidum flowers as raw material, the extraction, isolation and coagulatory activity of polysaccharides were carried out for the first time. The crude polysaccharide was obtained by hot water extraction and ethanol precipitation, and preliminarily purified by Sevage method and D101 macroporous resin. Then the polysaccharide was further purified by DEAE-52 cellulose and Sephadex G-100 column chromatography, respectively. The structural characteristics were detected by LC, GC, FT-IR and NMR. Furthermore, the coagulatory activity of the polysaccharides were investigated by APTT, TT, PT and FIB assays in vitro. The results demonstrated that four polysaccharides were isolated from flowers of L. lucidum, named as LLP-1a, LLP-1b, LLP-2 and LLP-3, and the yields were 0.039, 0.0054, 0.0055 and 0.017%, respectively based on the weight of the dried flowers. The four polysaccharides components were free of nucleic acids and proteins, and their average molecular weights were 25,912, 64,919, 3,940,246 and 2,975,091 g/mol, respectively. The monosaccharide compositions of LLp-1a were l-rhamnose, l-arabinose, d-xylose, d-glucose and d-galactose (molar ratio of 3.16: 2.46: 1.00: 7.27: 4.22). Only d-galactose was detected from LLp-1b. LLp-2 was composed of l-arabinose, d-glucose and d-galactose (molar ratio of 1.28:1.32:1.00). LLp-3 was composed of l-rhamnose, l-arabinose, d-xylose, d-glucose and d-galactose (molar ratio of 5.85: 2.21: 2.23: 1.00: 2.25). Coagulation assays indicated that LLp-1a and LLp-3 had good anticoagulant effect in vitro, while LLp-1b showed procoagulant activity.