Purification, characterization and antioxidant activities in vitro of polysaccharides from Amaranthus hybridus L

Zizhong Tang; Caixia Zhou; Yi Cai; Yujia Tang; Wenjun Sun; Huipeng Yao; Tianrun Zheng; Hui Chen; Yirong Xiao; Zhi Shan; Tongliang Bu; Xiaoli Wang; Lin Huang; Lin Gou

doi:10.7717/peerj.9077

Purification, characterization and antioxidant activities in vitro of polysaccharides from Amaranthus hybridus L

PeerJ. 2020 Apr 29:8:e9077. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9077. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Zizhong Tang^#¹, Caixia Zhou^#¹, Yi Cai¹, Yujia Tang¹, Wenjun Sun¹, Huipeng Yao¹, Tianrun Zheng¹, Hui Chen¹, Yirong Xiao², Zhi Shan¹, Tongliang Bu¹, Xiaoli Wang¹, Lin Huang³, Lin Gou¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Life Sciences, Sichuan Agricultural University, Yaan, China.
² Sichuan Agricultural University Hospital, Yaan, China.
³ Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Amaranthus hybridus L. is an annual, erect or less commonly ascending herb that is a member of the Amaranthaceae family. Polysaccharides extracted from traditional Chinese medicines may be effective substances with antioxidant activity.

Methods: In this study, we isolated crude polysaccharides from A. hybridus (AHP-M) using microwave-assisted extraction. Then, the AHP-M was purified by chromatography with DEAE-32 cellulose, and two fractions, AHP-M-1 and AHP-M-2, were obtained. The structural characteristics of AHP-M-1 and AHP-M-2 were investigated, and their antioxidant activities were analyzed in vitro.

Results: We found that the monosaccharide composition of AHP-M-1 was different from that of AHP-M-2. The molecular weights of AHP-M-1 and AHP-M-2 were 77.625 kDa and 93.325 kDa, respectively. The results showed that the antioxidant activity of AHP-M-2 was better than that of AHP-M-1. For AHP-M-2, the DPPH radical scavenging rate at a concentration of 2 mg/mL was 78.87%, the hydroxyl radical scavenging rate was 39.34%, the superoxide anion radical scavenging rate was 80.2%, and the reduction ability of Fe³⁺ was approximately 0.90. The total antioxidant capacity per milligram of AHP-M-2 was 6.42, which was higher than that of Vitamin C (Vc).

Conclusion: The in vitro test indicated that AHP-M-1 and AHP-M-2 have good antioxidant activity, demonstrating that A. hybridus L. polysaccharide has immense potential as a natural antioxidants.

Keywords: Amaranthus hybridus L.; Antioxidant; Physicochemical; Polysaccharides.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30671530). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.