Free radical scavenging and antioxidant activities of EPS2, an exopolysaccharide produced by a marine filamentous fungus Keissleriella sp. YS 4108

The reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radical-initiated reactions are ascertained to play multiple roles in degenerative or pathological events such as aging, cancer, heart dysfunction and Alzheimer's disease. EPS2 with a mean molecular weight of 1.3 x 10(5) was characterized as an antioxidant exopolysaccharide from the broth of a marine filamentous fungus Keissleriella sp. YS 4108. Compositionally, it is composed of galactose, glucose, rhamnose, mannose and glucuronic acid in an approximate proportion of 50:8:1:1:0.4. The radical eliminating and antioxidant actions of the glycan was assessed in different in vitro systems showing that EPS2 exhibited profound scavenging activities in superoxide radical. As a reinforcement of the action, similar radical scavenging effects of EPS2 were also discerned with both site-specific and non site-specific hydroxyl radical using the deoxyribose assay method. Moreover, EPS2 effectively blocked as well the non site-specific strand-breaking of DNA induced by the Fenton reaction at concentrations of 0.1 and 1 mg/mL. Further investigation of the effect of EPS2 on human low density lipoprotein (LDL) system demonstrated that it significantly inhibited copper-mediated oxidation of LDL in a dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that EPS2, possessing pronounced free radical scavenging and antioxidant activities, could be of considerable preventive and therapeutic significance to some life-threatening health problems such as cancer, atherogenesis and Alzheimer's disease which pathologically initiated by the presence of free radicals leading to the inevitable peroxidation of important biomolecules.