Isolation and characterization of a high molecular mass β-glucan from Lactobacillus fermentum Lf2 and evaluation of its immunomodulatory activity.

When grown in a semi-defined medium, L. fermentum Lf2 synthesizes significant quantities (∼2 g/L) of two exopolysaccharides (EPS). The two EPS were separated by preparative size exclusion chromatography to give a high molecular mass β-glucan (1.23 × 106 Da) and a medium molecular mass heteroglycan (8.8 × 104 Da). The structure of the high molecular mass β-glucan was determined using a combination of NMR spectroscopy, monomer and linkage analysis. The EPS has the following structure:Image 2