Purification, characterization and enzymatic degradation of YCP, a polysaccharide from marine filamentous fungus Phoma herbarum YS4108

YCP, a mitogenic polysaccharide with its molecular weight (MW) of 2.4 x 10(3) kDa, was isolated from the mycelium of the marine filamentous fungus Phoma herbarum YS4108 by a combination of ion-exchange chromatography on DEAE-32 and gel permeation over Sephacryl S-400. The detailed compositional, spectroscopic and methylation analyses of the polysaccharide demonstrated that its backbone possessed most likely a linear alpha-(1 --> 4) bonded glucopyranoside main chain co-bearing through side alpha-(1 --> 6)-linkage. The alpha-(1 --> 4) bondage of the glucopyranoside building blocks in YCP was confirmed by the observation that it could be hydrolyzed by the alpha-amylase produced by Bacillus licheniformis. A reliable concentration monitoring experimentation highlighted that the reducing sugars released continuously from YCP during its incubation with the enzyme, and the MW of the main resulting fragment weighed 0.8 x 10(4) Da with approximately 10% of YCP converted to maltose, maltotriose and glucose after a 120-min enzymatic degradation. Finally, YCP was found to be able to increase phagocytic activity of mice in vitro and in vivo, indicating that it may be looked up as a potent immunomodulator that could activate macrophages.