Purified Tetrastigma hemsleyanum vines polysaccharide attenuates EC-induced toxicity in Caco-2 cells and Caenorhabditis elegans via DAF-16/FOXO pathway.

Ethyl Carbamate (EC), as a carcinogen widely found in fermented foods, was verified that its cytotoxicity was associated with oxidative stress. Polysaccharides from natural sources due to their antioxidative capacity have attracted great attention in the past time. In this study, purified polysaccharide from Tetrastigma hemsleyanum vines (TVP) with 64.89 kDA was extracted and conducted multiple analysis to identify its structural information. It could be discovered that TVP was composed of mannose, rhamnose, glucuronic acid, glucose, galactose, and arabinose. In vitro, TVP could inhibit cytotoxicity and genotoxicity, attenuate oxidative damage and mitochondrial dysfunction induced by EC in Caco-2 cells. Meanwhile, TVP could suppress apoptosis by mTOR and Bcl-2 signaling pathways, ameliorate oxidative via Sirt1-FoxO1 and Nrf2-Keap1 signaling pathways. In vivo, EC as well triggered the decline of survival and athletic ability in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and TVP could reverse the decline. In the meantime, TVP could ameliorate oxidative damage in N2 and daf-2 (-) mutant but fail in daf-16 (-) mutant, which suggested that DAF-16 (FOXO) might affect the antioxidative protection of TVP in C. elegans. In brief, our results manifested that TVP could attenuate EC-induced cytotoxicity both in vitro and in vivo.