Ultrasonic-assisted production of antioxidative polysaccharides from Crassostrea hongkongensis

The beneficial effects of oyster extract against various disorders and diseases induced by oxidative stress have aroused great interest. In this article, ultrasonic-assisted enzymolysis was employed to produce polysaccharides of Crassostrea hongkongensis (CHP) and their antioxidant activity was investigated. A single-factor experiment and then a four-factor, three-level Box-Behnken design were first used to optimize ultrasonic extraction for polysaccharides. On the basis of ridge analysis, the optimum conditions are obtained as ultrasonic treatment time of 24 min, power of 876 W, temperature of 49°C, and material-solvent ratio of 1:6 (w/v). It is found that ultrasound pretreatment before protease hydrolysis was a great help to improve CHP yield and purity, especially more favorable with flavorzyme, neutrase, alcalase, and pepsin. Furthermore, the polysaccharide fraction, which was obtained by ultrasonic pretreatment and then alcalase hydrolysis at the conditions of 3000 U/g, 55°C, pH 8.0, for 4 hr, exhibited an obvious scavenging effect on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and hydroxyl radical (98.48 ± 0.55% and 99.20 ± 0.12%, respectively) and a lenoleic acid peroxidation inhibition effect (85.48 ± 0.65%) at a concentration of 5.0 mg/mL. These results reveal the potential application of CHP in functional food and nutraceuticals.