Abstract

Balanophora harlandii Hook (B. harlandii), a folk medicine, has been traditionally employed to treat traumatic bleeding, gastroenteritis, icteric hepatitis, hemorrhoids, and other conditions. In this work, polysaccharides with anti-inflammatory effects were extracted and purified from B. harlandii. The extraction conditions were optimized, and the properties of one purified neutral fraction, denoted as BHPs-W-S3, were analyzed. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) was carried out to measure the molecular weight. The structure of BHPs-W-S3 was assessed based on monosaccharide composition analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, methylation analysis, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. BHPs-W-S3 has a molecular weight of 14.1 kDa, and its three main monosaccharides are glucose, galactose, and mannose with a molar ratio of 6.4:1.7:1.1. Its main chain consists of [->]6)--D-Glcp-(1[->], [->]4,6)--D-Glcp-(1[->], [->]6)-{beta}-D-Galp-(1[->], [->]3,6)-{beta}-D-Galp-(1[->], and it has branch chains at the O-4 and/or O-3 positions. In addition, in vitro experiments show that the polysaccharides from B. harlandi can decrease the phosphorylation level of p65 and IKB- in LPS-induced RAW264.7 cells to reduce the expression of the pro-inflammatory genes such as TNF-, IL-6, and IL-1{beta}. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=117 SRC="FIGDIR/small/559774v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (26K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@17ccfeforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@137726borg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@139100dorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@14cce50_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG