Author(s)

Yonggang Xia, Jun Liang, Bingyou Yang, Qiuhong Wang, Haixue Kuang

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Two polysaccharides (ESP-A1 and ESP-A2) were isolated from the cold water extract of Ephedra sinica Stapf and purified through ethanol precipitation, deproteinization and by ion exchange and gel-filtration chromatography. Their molecular weight was determined using high performance size exclusion chromatog-raphy and evaporative light scattering detector (HPSEC-ELSD) and their monosaccharide composition was analyzed by high performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) based on pre-column derivatization with 1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-pyrazolone (PMP). It was shown that ESP-A1 consisted of xylose, arabinose, glucose, mannose and galactose and ESP-A2 consisted of xylose, arabinose, rhamnose and galactose, in a molar ratio (%) of 3.2: 61.1: 11.1: 12.9: 11.6 and 20.6: 67.7: 5.0: 6.7, respectively. The molecular weights (Mw) of ESP-A1 and ESP-A2 were 5.83 × 104 Da and more than 200 × 104 Da, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, two neutral polysaccharides are now being reported for the first time in this study.

Ephedra sinica Stapf, Polysaccharides, Isolation and Purification, Molecular Weight, Monosaccharide Composition

Xia, Y. , Liang, J. , Yang, B. , Wang, Q. and Kuang, H. (2010) Identification of Two Cold Water-Soluble Polysaccharides from the Stems of Ephedra sinica Stapf. Chinese Medicine, 1, 63-68. doi: 10.4236/cm.2010.13013.