Polysaccharides of algae 65. Unusual polysaccharide composition of the pacific brown alga Punctaria plantaginea

Quantitative determination revealed the presence of storage glucan (6.0%), fucoidan (19.2%) and alginate (12.7%) in the biomass of the brown alga Punctaria plantaginea collected from the Sea of Japan. The polysaccharides were isolated from the alga by fractional extraction followed by additional purification procedures. Unlike the well-known laminarans the storage polysaccharide from P. plantaginea was shown to be a linear (1→6)-β-d-glucopyranan, which is new for brown alga. The content of guluronic acid (G) residues in the alginate molecules exceeded the content of mannuronic acid residues (M), M/G = 0.5. Poly-G and poly-MG blocks were isolated from the products of partial hydrolysis of alginic acid; however, a heterogeneous mixture of polysaccharide fragments was obtained instead of the expected poly-M fraction. Preliminary data suggests that fucoidan from this alga is a new for brown algae type of sulfated polysaccharide (xylofucan) with a main backbone built of α-l-fucopyranose residues. This chain contains multiple sulfate groups and single non-sulfated β-d-xylopyranose residues as substituents.