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Review
. 2024 Apr 2;17(4):456.
doi: 10.3390/ph17040456.

Updated Progress on Polysaccharides with Anti-Diabetic Effects through the Regulation of Gut Microbiota: Sources, Mechanisms, and Structure-Activity Relationships

Xiaoyu Zhang  1 , Jia Wang  1 , Tingting Zhang  1 , Shuqin Li  1 , Junyu Liu  1 , Mingyue Li  1 , Jingyang Lu  1 , Min Zhang  2   3 , Haixia Chen  1
Affiliations
Review

Updated Progress on Polysaccharides with Anti-Diabetic Effects through the Regulation of Gut Microbiota: Sources, Mechanisms, and Structure-Activity Relationships

Xiaoyu Zhang et al. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). .

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common chronic metabolic disease worldwide. The disturbance of the gut microbiota has a complex influence on the development of DM. Polysaccharides are one type of the most important natural components with anti-diabetic effects. Gut microbiota can participate in the fermentation of polysaccharides, and through this, polysaccharides regulate the gut microbiota and improve DM. This review begins by a summary of the sources, anti-diabetic effects and the gut microbiota regulation functions of natural polysaccharides. Then, the mechanisms of polysaccharides in regulating the gut microbiota to exert anti-diabetic effects and the structure-activity relationship are summarized. It is found that polysaccharides from plants, fungi, and marine organisms show great hypoglycemic activities and the gut microbiota regulation functions. The mechanisms mainly include repairing the gut burrier, reshaping gut microbiota composition, changing the metabolites, regulating anti-inflammatory activity and immune function, and regulating the signal pathways. Structural characteristics of polysaccharides, such as monosaccharide composition, molecular weight, and type of glycosidic linkage, show great influence on the anti-diabetic activity of polysaccharides. This review provides a reference for the exploration and development of the anti-diabetic effects of polysaccharides.

Keywords: anti-diabetic effects; mechanism; polysaccharides; structure–activity relationship; the gut microbiota.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sources of polysaccharides and the structures of some examples [48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mechanisms of polysaccharides: (a) repairing gut barrier, (b) changing gut microbiota composition and metabolites, (c) regulating anti-inflammatory activity and immune function, and (d) regulating signal pathways. The up-pointing or right-pointing arrow (red or green) means increase, and the down-pointing arrow (red) means decrease. √ means improvement.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Gut microbiota and related organs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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