Research progress on the effects of traditional Chinese medicine processing on the structure, content and biological activity of polysaccharides in traditional Chinese medicines

Processing is the core traditional technology to regulate the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine. Polysaccharides serve as key components in exerting biological activities such as immune regulation, antioxidant, and blood sugar reduction, its content and structural characteristics determine its biological activity, therefore, clarifying the mechanism by which processing affects the polysaccharides in traditional Chinese medicine is an important direction for explaining the processing of traditional Chinese medicine. In this paper, the main processing methods such as stir-frying, roasting and steaming are arranged and expounded in detail in terms of content, structure and activity. The results indicate that the processing affects the polysaccharide content through changing the physical properties of herbs, damaging cell structures, and triggering chemical reactions through multiple pathways. By breaking glycosidic bonds under the action of heat, acid and water, the changes of molecular weight, monosaccharide composition, functional group ratio and the spatial structure of polysaccharide were changed, thus affecting the biological activities of polysaccharide such as immunity and antioxidation. The existing research shows that the effect of processing on traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharide has the specificity of "process-medicine-component", in the future, modern analytical techniques such as X-ray diffraction and high-resolution mass spectrometry should be combined to deeply analyze the molecular mechanism of regulating the structure-activity relationship of polysaccharides in processing, so as to provide scientific basis for the standardization and accurate optimization of processing technology of traditional Chinese medicine.