A simple and inexpensive procedure of agar and agarose production from the red alga Ahnfeltia tobuchiensis was developed, which needs no additional chromatographic purification.
The red alga Ahnfeltia tobuchiensis was successively extracted six times, and the resulting crude agar extracts were characterized by high-performance size exclusion chromatography. An agar fraction (13.1-42.7%), protein-polysaccharide contaminants (53.4%-77.2%), and low-molecular mass impurities (3.9-9.7%) were found in the extracts. In successive extracts, the degree of methylation of agar molecules was shown to increase, the methyl groups being located only in position 2 of 3,6-anhydro-alpha-L-galactose residues. The differences in molecular mass and sulfate content between the different agar extracts were insignificant. An increase in the methylation degree of agars does not affect their gelation temperature and only decreases the melting point of the agar gels.
Adsorbability of alginic acid and its salts extracted from brown seaweeds and character of their biological action were studied. The results of clinical tests alginic acid and its salts as well as of preparations and food-stuffs, prepared from Laminaria japonica Arech, were reflected. The potentialities of use of alginates and food-stuffs containing them in therapeutic nutrition was shown.
Accumulation of 85Sr and 137Cs radionuclide blend in rats was studied. Effect of alginic acid, its salts as well as foods containing the polysaccharides on dynamics of accumulation was established. It was shown that efficiency of compounds studied depends on type of salt of alginic acid and presence of guluronic acid in it.
Noninbred female white rats were fed for 30 days with diets containing 137Cs and 85Sr in indicative doses. After that the animals received some sea products to investigate their radioprotective properties. Natural sea products proved able to influence the kinetics of the radionuclides metabolism. Laminaria salad "Dalnevostochny" given in the dose 20 g per animal reduced the accumulation of radioactive Cs and Sr by 76.7 and 57.6%, respectively. Moreover, sea products stabilize functional activity of peripheral blood natural killers which are important in immunological defense of the body.
