title: Chemical composition and antioxidant activities of  three polysaccharide fractions from pine cones.
abstract: The traditional method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for monosaccharide component analysis with pretreatment of acetylation is described with slight modifications and verified in detail in this paper. It was then successfully applied to the quantitative analysis of component monosaccharides in polysaccharides extracted  from the pine cones. The results demonstrated that the three pine cone polysaccharides  all consisted of ribose, rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, glucose and galactose in different molar ratios. According to the recovery experiment, the described method was proved accurate and practical for the analysis of pine cone polysaccharides, meeting the need in the field of chemical analysis of Pinus plants. Furthermore; the chemical characteristics, such as neutral sugar, uronic acids, amino acids, molecular weights, and antioxidant activities of the polysaccharides were investigated by chemical and instrumental methods. The results showed that the chemical compositions of the polysaccharides differed from  each other, especially in the content of neutral sugar and uronic acid. In the antioxidant assays, the polysaccharide fractions exhibited effective scavenging activities on ABTS radical and hydroxyl radical, with their antioxidant capabilities decreasing in the order of PKP > PAP > PSP. Therefore, although the polysaccharide fractions had little effect on superoxide radical scavenging, they still have potential to be developed as natural antioxidant agents in functional foods or medicine.
authors.affiliation: School of Food Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 73 Huanghe Road, Nangang District, Harbin 150090, China. yangxin@hit.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Ren-Bo
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hai-Tian
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Wei-Hong
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Cui-Lin
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Pan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Wei-Wei
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Pu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Wen-Jing
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xing-Long
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D000975:Antioxidants / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005591:Chemical Fractionation; D016166:Free Radical Scavengers / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D017665:Hydroxyl Radical / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors; D028223:Pinus / Q000737:chemistry*; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D011134:Polysaccharides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000494:pharmacology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013481:Superoxides / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors
chemical_list: D000975:Antioxidants; D016166:Free Radical Scavengers; D010936:Plant Extracts; D011134:Polysaccharides; D013481:Superoxides; D017665:Hydroxyl Radical