Frequent Occurrence of HIV-Inhibitory Sulphated Polysaccharides in Marine Invertebrates

Abstract

Aqueous extracts of many marine invertebrates have exhibited some activity in the National Cancer Institute's primary screen for anti-HIV cytopathicity. Using a variety of techniques, including gel permeation, size exclusion and ion exchange chromatography, toluidine blue metachromicity, 13C-NMR spectroscopy and combustion analyses, we have determined that this activity is largely due to sulphated polysaccharides. Because of the wide occurrence of this class of compounds in these organisms we sought a method for the rapid dereplication of sulphated polysaccharides. It was critical that the method selected for dereplication allow differentiation of anionic polysaccharides from other AIDS-antiviral chemotypes. After evaluating a variety of methods, we found that the most efficient strategy appeared to be precipitation of the polysaccharide fraction from aqueous ethanolic solutions of the crude aqueous extracts.