Study on the purification and characterization of a polysaccharide conjugate from tea flowers.

In this paper, the crude polysaccharides from the flowers of tea plant (Camellia sinensis) (TFPS) extracted with hot water were fractionated on a DEAE Sepharose FF chromatography to get TFPS1 with a yield of 18%. The properties and chemical compositions of TFPS1 were analyzed with GC, HPGPC, IC, IR methods and its morphology was observed with atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results showed that TFPS1 was a neutral glycoprotein conjugate with a molecular weight 500kDa. The alanine, threonine, glycine, valine, serine, histidine, glutamic acid, histidine and tyrosine were found in TFPS1 and the total content was 2.03%. TFPS1 was consisted of rhamnose, arabinose, mannose, glucose and galactose, with a mole ratio of 1.0:2.9:0.5:1.3:3.3. Sugar backbone of TFPS1 may consist of glucose and galactose, but branched chain may consist of arabinose, galactose and rhamnose. The IR spectrum of TFPS1 revealed the typical characteristics of polysaccharides and protein. TFPS1 was spherical particle structure with a diameter of 50-70nm. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.