卡拉胶酶研究进展

Advances on Carrageenase Research

卡拉胶酶是一种多糖水解酶,可以通过降解卡拉胶的β-1,4糖苷键,来生成卡拉胶低聚糖。根据酶解底物的差异,将其分为κ-卡拉胶酶,■-卡拉胶酶和λ-卡拉胶酶。近年来,研究发现卡拉胶寡糖具有抗病毒、抗肿瘤、免疫调节及抗凝血等药理活性,有望成为新一代的海洋药物而卡拉胶酶不但可以作为工具酶用于卡拉胶寡糖的制备,而且有助于卡拉胶结构的研究;另外,卡拉胶酶还可用于藻类原生质体的制备、因此,卡拉胶酶的研究具有重要的理论意义和明确的应用前景。本文从卡拉胶酶的分类及家族归属、来源、性质。

Carrageenases,the name for a set of enzymes which can hydrolyse polysaccharids,display a strict substrate specificity namelyκ-,ι-,andλ-carrageenases and all are endohydrolases that cleave the internal （1→4） linkages of carrageenans yielding products of the neocarrabioseseries.Recently,some carrabiose oligosaccharides are continually found to be of valuable pharmacological activities in the development of drugs.Antitumor,antiviral,anticoagulant and immunomodulate activities of low molecular carrageenan have been reported.Carrageenases not only can be used to prepare oligosaccharides,but also help to determine the structures of carrageenan and obtain alga protoplast.Therefore,the investigation of carrageenanases is of great significance for the research and development of new drugs.This article summarizes the recent research progress on carrageenases in classification,sources,properties,molecular biology and applications.