Characterisation and quantification of polysaccharides in extracts from Viscum album L. with HPLC-UV as 4-aminobenzoic acid ethyl esters

Polysaccharides from Viscum album L., which are characterised as arabino-galactans, are contained in aqueous mistletoe preparations. It is known that they have immune modulating properties. In order to improve the pharmaceutical quality it's desirable to characterize and quantify the arabino-galactans in mistletoe preparations. Here we present a simple method to detect hydrolysable saccharides within mistletoe extracts by simultaneous identification of arabinose, fructose, galactose, glucose, rhamnose and xylose. Because arabinose and galactose are typical components of polysaccharides, it is a profound indicati…