Cyanoflan: a cyanobacterial sulfated carbohydrate polymer with emulsifying properties

• Autor(a) principal: Mota, Rita
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Vidal, Ricardo, Pandeirada, Carolina, Flores, Carlos, Adessi, Alessandra, De Philippis, Roberto, Nunes, Cláudia, Coimbra, Manuel A., Tamagnini, Paula
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/36975
• topic: Cyanobacteria; Cyanoflan; Cyanothece; Emulsification; Extracellular carbohydrate polymer

The extracellular polysaccharides produced by cyanobacteria have distinctive characteristics that make them promising for applications ranging from bioremediation to biomedicine. In this study, a sulfated polysaccharide produced by a marine cyanobacterial strain and named cyanoflan was characterized in terms of morphology, chemical composition, and rheological and emulsifying properties. Cyanoflan has a 71 % carbohydrate content, with 11 % of sulfated residues, while the protein account for 4 % of dry weight. The glycosidic-substitution analysis revealed a highly branched complex chemical structure with a large number of sugar residues. The cyanoflan high molecular mass fractions (above 1 MDa) and entangled structure is consistent with its high apparent viscosity in aqueous solutions and high emulsifying activity. It showed to be a typical non-Newtonian fluid with pseudoplastic behavior. Altogether, these results confirm that cyanoflan is a versatile carbohydrate polymer that can be used in different biotechnological applications, such as emulsifying/thickening agent in food or cosmetic industries.