ABSTRACT
Folic acid belongs to the group of water-soluble B vitamins and naturally exists in multiple forms in a wide variety of foods such as legumes, vegetables, liver, and milk (Iyer and Tomar, 2009; Lyon et al., 2020). It is involved in many biochemical reactions critical for cell division, such as purine and pyrimidine biosynthesis, DNA/RNA biosynthesis, and amino acid metabolism (Iyer and Tomar, 2009). Mammals cannot synthesize folic acid and thus they must acquire it from food. Although folic acid is ubiquitous in foods, folic acid deficiency still often occurs due to various causes such as unhealthy diet (Hildebrand et al., 2021; Iimura et al., 2022), disease-related malabsorption (Arcot and Shrestha, 2005), medication-related depletion (Arcot and Shrestha, 2005), or vitamin B12 deficiency (Fishman et al., 2000). Folic acid deficiency has been associated with several health problems, such as anemia (Carmel, 2005; Bailey and Caudill, 2012), cancer (Duthie, 1999), cardiovascular diseases (Wald et al., 2002), neural tube defects in newborns (van der Put et al., 2001), neuropsychiatric dysfunction (Shea et al., 2002), depression (Falade et al., 2021), inflammatory diseases (Suzuki and Kunisawa, 2015; Jones et al., 2019), and eye diseases (Sijilmassi, 2019). To prevent folic acid deficiency, its daily intake (400 μg/d) has been recommended for adults in the European Union, and its increased intake (600 μg/d) is advised for women before and during pregnancy (FAO/WHO, 2002; IOM, 2004). The New Zealand government mandated the fortification of non-organic wheat flour with folic acid in July 2021, and the UK government mandated the fortification of non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid in September 2021 (Haggarty, 2021).
Subject(s)
Adult , Animals , Female , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Pregnancy , Flour , Folic Acid/metabolism , Folic Acid Deficiency/prevention & control , Food, Fortified , Mammals/metabolism , Triticum/metabolismABSTRACT
Polysaccharides, extracted from the herbs of Chinese natural Solanum lyratum Thunb (SLT), which is a traditional Chinese medicine with hot water and 0.04 M sodium hydroxide successively, were fractionated and purified by ion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography. According to methylation, periodate oxidation, NMR spectroscopy, partial and graded acid and enzymic hydrolysis analysis, the results indicated the D-glucan to be linear and to contain both (1-->3)- and (1-->4)-linkages. The anomeric NMR and IR spectra measurements confirmed that the sugar residues were beta-glycosidically linked.
Subject(s)
Polysaccharides/chemistry , Water/chemistry , Carbohydrate Conformation , Centrifugation , Chromatography , Chromatography, Gel , Chromatography, Ion Exchange , Drugs, Chinese Herbal , Glucans/chemistry , Glucose/chemistry , Hydrolysis , Macromolecular Substances/chemistry , Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy , Molecular Weight , Oxygen/chemistry , Periodic Acid/metabolism , Sodium Hydroxide/chemistry , Solanum , Spectrophotometry, InfraredABSTRACT
The cell wall polysaccharides from Cordyceps sinensis were obtained from the fresh samples of the mycelia, the material was released by successive extractions with hot water and 0.05 M sodium hydroxide solutions. The extracts were fractionated by ion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography, respectively. Analysis of the first fraction showed that cordyglucans were the unique component. Cordyglucans were found to exhibit potent antitumor activity, this activity could be correlated to their (1-->3)-beta-d-glucan linkages.
