Five polysaccharide fractions (AB-1, AB-2, AB-3, AB-4, and AB-5) were obtained after a systemicsolvent extraction and precipitation of
Agaricus blazei mycelia with yields of 5.20, 9.03, 2.84, 17.47,and 0.44%, respectively. Among which, AB-1 and AB-3 demonstrated great DPPH
radical scavengingability around 85.0 and 72.0%, respectively, at a concentration of 5 mg/mL. The ferrous ion chelatingpowers were even more excellent at a concentration of 1 mg/mL, reaching almost over 99.65% forfractions AB-2, AB-3, and AB-4 as compared to the reference control of citric acid (35%); at a dosageof 5 mg/mL, fraction AB-1 even showed 105% in efficiency. In terms of the absolute chelating power(ACP), the mole numbers of ferrous (Fe
2+) ions chelated were inversely related with the meanmolecular mass of the polysaccharides in each fraction. In addition, gel permeation chromatographyanalysis showed that the more potent fractions were residing in those fractions with lower molecularmasses, such as fractions AB-1 (757 kDa), AB-2 (887 kDa), and AB-4 (631 kDa) etc., and surprisingly,the free radical scavenging capability was also not closely correlated with the mean molecular masses,alternately being well-associated with the solubility of polysaccharides.Keywords:
Agaricus blasei Murill; mycelia; polysaccharides; GPC; DPPH; Fe
2+; ACP
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