Enzymatically hydrolysed pectic polysaccharides for treating or preventing infections

Abstract

The invention relates to a product for use in the therapeutic or prophylactic treatment of infections, said treatment comprising oral administration of the product, wherein the product is selected from a nutritional formulation, a food product, a dietary supplement, a beverage and a pharmaceutical product, said product containing carrot RG-I polysaccharides having the following combination features: a molecular weight in the range 10-300 kDa; a backbone consisting of galacturonic acid residues and rhamnose residues, said rhamnose residues being contained in alpha(1→4)-galacturonic-alpha(1→2)-rhamnose residues; the following monosaccharide composition: 20-60 mol. % galacturonic acid residues, wherein the individual galacturonic acids can be methylated and/or acetyl-esterified; 8-50 mol. % rhamnose residues; 0-40 mol. % arabinose residues; 0-40 mol. % galactose residues; molar ratio of galacturonic acid residues to rhamnose residues in the range of 5:1 to 1:1; galacturonic acid residues, rhamnose residues, arabinose residues and galactose residues together constitute at least 85 mol. % of the monosaccharide residues in the carrot RG-I polysaccharides. These carrot RG-I polysaccharides can be produced by partially hydrolysing pectic polysaccharides present in a carrot pectin isolate. The effectiveness of carrot RG-I polysaccharides against infections is substantially improved by enzymatically hydrolysing the RG-I polysaccharides to remove at least part of the homogalacturonan component.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.