Effect of anticoagulative sulfated polysaccharide purified from enzyme-assistant extract of a brown seaweed Ecklonia cava on Wistar rats

In this study, the anticoagulant activity of a sulfated polysaccharide purified from enzyme assistant extract of brown seaweed Ecklonia cava (ECSP) was investigated both in vitro and in vivo. The sulfated polysaccharide purified from AMG assistant extract of E. cava showed anticoagulant activity comparable to that of a commercial fucoidan in activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), thrombin time (TT) and prothrombin time (PT) clotting assays in vitro. In Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), similar transmittance was observed for the commercial fucoidan and ECSP with an intense absorption band at 1240 and 820 cm−1 indicating its high sulfate content. The administration of the anticoagulant drug in rats clearly extended the coagulation time in a dose dependent and time dependent manner in both APTT and TT assays, especially a clear effect was observed at 30 min after the initial sample treatment. In the tail bleeding assay, ECSP showed prolonged bleeding time (>1800 ± 05.1 s) than the control (900 ± 20.1 s) at the dosage of 300 μg/kg. With the current findings ECSP might be a promising candidate in pharmaceutical applications as a natural anticoagulant.