Abstract:

The microwave-assisted extraction of polysaccharide from blueberry fruit was optimized by respons surface
methdology in this work. Hydrogen peroxide, trichloroacetic acid-n-butanol and polyamide column chromatography were
compared for their efficiencies in removing pigment and protein from crude polysaccharide from blueberry fruit. After
further purification by DEAE-cellulose 52 column and Sephadex G-100 column chromagraphy, we analyzed the purity
by HPLC and monosaccharide composition of purifed polysaccharide by GC. The optimal conditions for polysaccharide
extraction were found to be 1:8 (g/mL), 600 W and 30 min for solid/solvent ratio, microwave power and extraction time,
respectively. The extraction efficiency of ploysaccharide under the optimized conditions was 3.32%. Polyamide column
chromatography was considerably more effective than the traditional methods with hydrogen peroxide and trichloroacetic
acid-n-butanol. Three polysaccharides were separated from DEAE-cellulose 52 column chromatography, namely BBP0,
BBP1 and BBP2. BBP0 were further separated by Sephadex G-100 column chromagraphy to obtain BBP0-2, which was
composed of arabinose, galactose, xylose and glucose with a molar ratio of 2:5:3:4.

Key words: blueberry, polysaccharide, microwave-assisted extraction, isolation and purification