Effect of mannuronate content and molecular weight of alginates on intestinal immunological activity through Peyer's patch cells of C3H/HeJ mice

We studied the effect of the mole fraction (F-M) of beta-D-mannuronate residues in alginate chains and the weight-average molecular weight (M-w) of alginates on intestinal immunological activity through Peyer s patch cells of C3H/HeJ mice Over most of the range of M-w (30 000-690 000) alginates with high mannuronate content (high-M alginates F-M 069-0 86) showed immunological activity but alginates with F-M lower than 031 did not For high-M alginates with F-M = 078 extracted from Laminaria Japonica those with Mw lower than 200 000 showed the highest activity (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved