Cp. Dietrich et al., A NEW APPROACH FOR THE CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYSACCHARIDES FROM ALGAE- PRESENCE OF 4 MAIN ACIDIC POLYSACCHARIDES IN 3 SPECIES OF THE CLASSPHAEOPHYCEA, PLANT SCI, 108(2), 1995, pp. 143-153
The fractionation of acidic polysaccharides by ion exchange chromatogr
aphy followed by agarose gel electrophoresis in a special buffer syste
m made of 1,3-diaminopropane has shown that the algae of the class Pha
eophycea, order Dictyotales (Dictyota mertensis and Padina gymnospora)
and order Fucales (Sargassum vulgare) as well as its floaters contain
4 main acidic polysaccharides. The compounds have a distinct electrop
horetic mobility and are eluted at different concentrations of NaCl fr
om the anion exchange resin; The chemical analyses of the compounds in
dicate that all the 3 algae contain alginic acid, a xylofucan and 2 sp
ecies of fucans with different sulfate contents. The main findings of
these studies were that this class of algae contains 4 main acidic pol
ysaccharides and that they were similar regarding the sugar compositio
n and sulfate content when the 3 algae were compared. The findings tha
t the acidic polysaccharides migrate as single discrete components in
electrophoresis suggest that they have defined structures and as a con
sequence, the sugars and sulfate residues are not randomly present in
the polymer chains. These observations lead also to the conclusion tha
t the quantitative differences of the sugars present in the crude poly
saccharide mixture of the 3 algae are due to the relative proportions
of the 4 acidic polysaccharides.