title: β-Glucans: Relationships between Modification, Conformation and Functional Activities.
abstract: β-glucan is a type of polysaccharide which widely exists in bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants, and has been well known for its biological activities such as enhancing immunity, antitumor, antibacterial, antiviral, and wound healing activities. The conformation of β-glucan plays a crucial role on its biological activities. Therefore, β-glucans obtained from different sources, while sharing the same basic structures, often show different bioactivities. The basic structure and inter-molecular forces of polysaccharides can be changed by modification, which leads to the conformational transformation in solution that can directly affect bioactivity. In this review, we will first determine different ways to modify β-glucan molecules including physical methods, chemical methods, and biological methods, and then reveal the relationship of the flexible helix form of the molecule chain and the helix conformation to their bioactivities. Last, we summarize the scientific challenges to modifying β-glucan's conformation and functional activity, and discuss its potential future development.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. wangqiang06@caas.cn.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. s_ilence0101@126.com.
authors.forename: Xiaojing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. sam_0912@163.com.
authors.forename: Aimin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. littleh@vip.sina.com.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. yingyang_umass@126.com.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. liulicaas@126.com.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Cornell University, Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. lingfei646@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fei
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. lhz0416@126.com.
authors.forename: Hongzhi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D008968:Molecular Conformation; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D047071:beta-Glucans / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D047071:beta-Glucans
keywords: conformation transformation; functional activities; modification; β-glucans