2.3. Molecular Weight and Monosaccharide Composition Analysis
The homogeneity and molecular weight of PCp-I and PCp-II were determined using high performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC), and only a single peak was observed (
Figure 3 and
Table 2). The molecular weight was estimated to be approximately 2.721 × 10
4 and 2.850 × 10
4 g/mol, according to a standard calibration curve that was obtained from definite molecular weight dextrans. The Mn was 1.911 × 10
4 and 2.339 × 10
4 g/mol, respectively. The dispersion coefficient (Mw/Mn) was used to be a judgment as to whether the molecular weight was distributed uniformly or not.
Gas Chromatography (GC) [
20] and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) [
21] were more commonly used to determine the monosaccharide composition. GC was the method for neutral sugar analysis with superb resolution and high sensitivity, however it required derivatization prior to analysis and it could not directly detect acid sugar [
22]. Usually, GC analysis could give the accurate content of sugars in the polysaccharides. In our study, PCp-I and PCp-II were first hydrolyzed and acetylated, and then the monosaccharide compositions were measured by GC and identified by comparing the retention time of standards. In
Table 3, PCp-I had a high amount of galactose and arabinose, and PCp-II mainly consisted of rhamnose, xylose, and galactose.
2.4. FT-IR Spectra Analysis
FT-IR spectroscopy was used to examine the main functional groups of carbohydrates [
23].
Figure 4 showed the FT-IR spectra of PCp-I and PCp-II. In the FT-IR spectrum, a strong and broad band at 3386 and 3416 cm
−1 were the characteristic of O–H stretching frequency, which was indicative of the strong inter- and intra-molecular interactions of the polysaccharide chains [
24]. The peaks at 2934 and 2937 cm
−1 were assigned to aliphatic C–H stretching [
25]. The absorption peaks around 1610, 1417, and 1070 cm
−1 were assigned to bending vibration of C–OH and C–O stretching of ether and anti-symmetric stretching band of C–O–C groups, respectively [
26]. The
α and
β conformations of the carbohydrate could be determined by the peak position of the terminal carbon in the 950–750 cm
−1 region, where 870–840 cm
−1 correspond to
α configuration and
β configuration belong to 890 cm
−1. The peaks that were observed at 896 and 893 cm
−1 indicated that the PCp-I and PCp-II had a β-glycoside link [
27].
2.5. Methylation Analysis
The linkage patterns of PCp-I and the corresponding percentages of alditol acetates were investigated while using methylation and GC-MS method. A major peak was observed in the GC profile (Data not shown), which was identified as 2,3,6-Tri-O-Me-Gal (35.66%), indicating that the main sugar residue of 1,4-linked-Gal
p was present in PCp-I. The total percentage of terminal sugar residues (2.34% of T-Glc
p and 6.74% of T-Gal
p) was 9.08%. The sugar residues of 1,3-linked-Gal
p (3.80%), 1,5-linked-Ara
f (7.91%), 1,3,6-linked-Man
p (3.09) and 1,4-linked-Man
p (2.18%) were also detected (
Table 4). In addition, the content of rhamnose was reduced and the xylose was not detected. These results indicated that the main sugar residues of PCp-I were galactose and arabinose. The ratio change might be due to the degradation of polysaccharide chain during the reduction procedure; however, the intrinsic reason still needs to be further discussed [
22]. As a whole, the results of methylation were basically consistent with the monosaccharide composition analysis.
2.6. The Chemical Shifts Assignments of Different Linkage Patterns of PCp-I by NMR
NMR spectroscopy, including one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) NMR spectra, was conducted for the elucidation of the structural features of PCp-I. The
1H-NMR spectrum (
Figure 5a) showed four signals in the anomeric region at
δ 5.27(A), 5.10(B), 4.65(C), and 4.54 (D). They were designated as A to D residues, according to their decreasing proton chemical shift values. In the
13C-NMR spectrum (
Figure 5b) four anomeric signals appeared at
δ107.5, 104.4, 103.4, and 98.5. The other carbon signals were in the region
δ 83.7-60.0. The anomeric carbon chemical shift values of residues A to D were correlated to the anomeric proton signals of residues from the HSQC spectrum (
Figure 5c).The anomeric carbon signal at
δ107.5 correlated to anomeric proton signal of B (
δ 5.10),
δ104.4 correlated to the signals C (
δ 4.65), at 103.4 correlated to D (
δ 4.54), at
δ 99.9 correlated to A (
δ 5.27) residues, respectively. All of the
1H and
13C signals (
Table 5) were assigned by
1H-
13C HSQC (
Figure 5c) and
1H-
1H COSY (
Figure 5d) experiments. The signals around at (1.3 and 17 ppm) were assigned to the protons of the methyl group. The peaks in the HSQC (1.26, 17.17 ppm) (
Figure 5c) indicated that PCp-I contained rhamnose residue.
Residue A: In the
1H spectrum, Residue A had an anomeric proton chemical shift at
δ 5.27 ppm, with the low field anomeric signal showing that it was an α-linked residue with relatively low content in PCp-I. It was identified as→2,4)-α-Rha
p-(1→. The complete
1H assignments were achieved through the COSY spectrum (
Figure 5d), which were
δ 4.13, 3.92, 3.66, 3.80, and 1.26 ppm for H-2, H-3, H-4, H-5, and H-6a/H6b, respectively (
Table 5). The chemical shifts from C-1 to C-5 could be assigned from the
1H-
13C HSQC spectrum, as shown in
Table 5. All of the
1H and
13C chemical shifts that were assigned in this study (
Table 5) were consistent with previous data [
28], which corroborate the above assignments.
Residue B: Residue B had an anomeric proton signal at
δ5.04 ppm. The proton resonances (
Table 5a) of residue B from H-1 to H-6 had been assigned to the α-arabinofuranose residue [
29]. The
13C signal for the anomeric carbon was observed at
δ107.4 ppm. The carbon signals from C-2 to C-5 were identified from the HSQC spectrum as shown in
Figure 5c and
Table 5. The chemical shift of C-5 was decreased, which indicated that it was the value of methyl glycosides and residue B was (1,5)-α-Araf [
30,
31]. All of the
1H and
13C chemical shifts assigned in this study (
Table 5a). Residue B was assigned as→5)-α-Ara
f-(1→ by comparing with previous data [
32] and the methylation analysis results.
Residue C: The signals of residue E at
δ 4.65 ppm and 104.4 ppm corresponded to an β-linked residue with high content in PCp-I. This residue was tentatively assigned as
β-1,4-linked-Galp by comparing with the reported data and peak intensity [
33]. The proton and corresponding
13C assignments of residue C were obtained from COSY and HSQC spectrums, as shown in
Figure 5c,d and
Table 5. All of the
1H and
13C chemical shifts of residue C were inconsistent with the previous reports [
28], and the corresponding intensity was supported by the methylation analysis results.
Residues D: Residue D was analyzed with the same way. The proton and carbon shifts of residue E were fully identified according to
1H-
1H COSY and HSQC spectras (
Table 5). The results were compared with previous data and methylation analysis, residue D was assigned as β-Glc
p-(1→ [
26,
34].
2.7. Sequence Analysis of Polysaccharide Chain by HMBC Spectrum
Once the
1H and
13C chemical shifts of sugar residues were completely assigned, the sequences of these residues were determined by observing residual connectivities in HMBC spectrum (
Figure 6e and
Table 6). Cross peaks were found between H-4 of residue A (
δ 3.66 ppm) and C-4 of residue C (
δ 77.8 ppm), C-2 of residue A (δ 77.7 ppm) and H-1 of residue D (
δ 4.54 ppm), and C-4 of residue A (
δ 84.2 ppm) and H-1 of residue B (
δ 5.04 ppm). The same way was used as those for residues of B, C, and D. Based on the monosaccharide composition, methylation and NMR spectroscopy, part structure of PCp-I was proposed. About some monosaccharide and methylation information were limited, so we cannot be inferred their location.
2.9. Thermal Stability Analysis
Thermogravimetry (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements were used for studying the mass loss and thermal transitions in the course of heating under an inert atmosphere.
Figure 7 and
Table 7 illustrated the results. The TG experiments (
Figure 7) showed two mass loss events for PCp-I and PCp-II, being the first near 100 °C, which might be attributed to the loss of adsorbed and structural water of both polysaccharides, as related by other authors [
36]. The DSC experiments showed, for both polysaccharides, an endothermic event near 100 °C, absorbed heat were 98.10 and 236.80 J/g, probably due to the water evaporation, in agreement with TG analysis. The second mass loss event, with an onset temperature of 150.15 and 132.98 °C and a peak temperature of 419.44 and 386.80 °C for PCp-I and PCp-II, respectively, resulted in a weight loss of 51.97% and 39.21%, which might be attributed to the polysaccharide decomposition. The DSC experiments had good correlation with TG peak temperatures. The third mass loss event was a slow mass loss process, the decomposition process of both polysaccharides was basically over, and the final residual mass was 28.45% and 33.72%, respectively. The DSC experiments showed that the thermal decomposition temperatures of PCp-I and PCp-II were 355.23 °C and 359.36 °C, which was significantly higher than that of other polysaccharides [
37,
38], and showed that PCp-I and PCp-II had good thermal stability.
2.10. PCp-I and PCp-II Inhibited the Proliferation of A549 Lung CancerCells
In the course of tumor progression, cancer cells undergo a number of characteristic changes, including the growth-inhibitory signals or ability of proliferation independently of exogenous growth-promoting [
39]. Significant tumor inhibition on A549 lung cancer cells was observed at different concentrations of PCp-I and PCp-II as compared with the control group (
Figure 8). PCp-I and PCp-II could decrease A549 cell viability in a dose-dependent manner. At the concentration of 100 μM, the cell viabilities were 48.77% and 51.87%, respectively. Comprehensive analysis, PCp-I and PCp-II had an inhibitory effect on A549 lung cancer cells (IC
50 = 64.84 and 126.30 μM), but their activities were lower than that of cisplatin as positive control (IC
50 = 11.00 μM). Han et al [
5] found that a water-soluble pectic polysaccharide HCA4S1 that isolated from
Houttuynia cordata might inhibit the proliferation of A549 lung cancer cell by inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, and the expression of cleaved caspase 3 and cyclinB1 was observed to be upregulated after the treatment with this polysaccharide. It was further found that PCp-I had structural fragments that were similar to that of HCA4S1. At present, Lentinan and Ginseng polysaccharide had anti-tumor activity and been used in clinical [
40,
41]. These suggest that
P. corylifolia polysaccharides are of potential value in the treatment of lung cancer.