Research progress on methods for determining monosaccharide composition and its relationship with activities: A...

Polysaccharides are one of the most abundant biomacromolecules in nature and serve as the key material basis for the therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese medicinal materials. The structural characteristics of polysaccharides govern their biological activity, with monosaccharides serving as the fundamental building blocks. Compared to fine structural characteristics, they also represent one of the simplest and most readily detectable indicators of polysaccharide composition. This paper reviews methods for determining the monosaccharide composition of natural carbohydrates and the related structure-activity relationships. Among the available methods, high-performance anion-exchange chromatography coupled with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD) is a relatively accurate and convenient approach, which does not require derivatization and can provide information on acidic sugars. This study provides the first comprehensive comparison and summary of the structure-activity relationships regarding the monosaccharide composition and biological activity of polysaccharides derived from plants, microorganisms, algae, and animals. Analysis indicates that acidic polysaccharides exhibit higher activity than neutral polysaccharides. Among neutral polysaccharides, those rich in galactose, arabinose, and glucose typically demonstrate higher biological activity. Future efforts should focus on developing high-throughput, multimodal structural analysis techniques. Additionally, more accurate predictive models should be constructed using methods such as machine learning to advance the rational design of polysaccharide-based drugs.