Novel branch patterns and anticoagulant activity of glycosaminoglycan from sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus.

A novel glucosidic pattern of fucose branches was found in the glycosaminoglycan from the sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus in China. The methylation of desulfated/carboxyl-reduced polysaccharides and analysis of unsaturated disaccharides generated from the enzymolysis of the defucosed polysaccharides demonstrated that the branch is formed by one fucopyranosyl residue, 46.5% of which is linked through the O-3 position of β-D-glucuronic acid, while 8.7% and 43.9% are linked through the O-6 and O-4 positions of the N-acetylgalactosamine moiety. The β-D-glucuronic acid, N-acetyl-β-D-galactosamine, α-L-fucose and sulfate ester with the molecular ratio of 0.97:1.00:1.13:3.85 composed the backbone → 4)GlcUAβ(1 → 3)GalNAcβ(1 → and sulfated fucose branches. The sulfation patterns of fucose branches and the linkage pattern of the backbone structure were determined by 1/2 dimension NMR. The most abundant branch species were 2,4-di-O-sulfated and 3,4-di-O-sulfated fucose, but 4-mono-O-sulfated residue was also present. The structure of presently obtained glycosaminoglycan is different from that previously obtained from Stichopus japonicus (Kariya et al., Carbohyd. Res. 297 (1997) 273-279), which suggests that the structures of glycosaminoglycans from the same species of different regions somehow differ. The anticoagulant assay indicated that the polysaccharide possessed a high anticoagulant activity and the sulfated fucose branches were essential to the activity.