Review article                                                                                           UDC: 577.114.7:616-085

                                                                                                           doi:10.5633/amm.2014.0410

 

 

 

 

PHARMACEUTICALLY IMPORTANT COMPLEX COMPOUNDS OF SOME MICROBIAL EXOPOLYSACCHARIDES

 

Žarko Mitić¹, Milorad Cakić²

 

University of Niš, Faculty of Medicine, Niš, Serbia¹

University of Niš, Faculty of Technology, Leskovac, Serbia²

 

 

In the field of medicinal chemistry, a lot of investigations are based on the synthesis and characterization of different metal complexes of ligands present in biological systems, or synthetic ligands, which will serve as the model molecules for complex biomolecular structures. Bio- or synthetic ligands are mainly natural chemical compounds of macromolecular type, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids. In this group of products very important are chemical compounds of polysaccharide dextran, pullulan and inulin with cations of the different transition biometals (Cu(II), Co(II), Zn(II) and Fe(III)). Ligands are mainly coordinated across the donor oxygen atoms used both in veterinary and human medicine, because all systems consist of the polysaccharide as energetic source, and bioelements as significant factors in metabolic processes in the organism. For prevention of anemia, products of the biological ligands and iron are usually used and there is a lot of literature data about that. Except iron, for the successful medical treatment, the presence of other hematopoietically active biometals is necessary, such as copper, cobalt and zinc. In human and veterinary medi-cine, especially interesting are products with polymicroelements, which provides the complex treatment of different diseases at the same time. This study will focus on the results of investigations carried out on the metal ion complexes of carbohydrate type ligands, with special attention to potential pharmaceutical applications of the biometal complexes with polysaccharides dextran and pullulan, and their derivatives. Acta Medica Medianae 2014;53(4):54-63.

 

Key words: microbial polysaccharides, dextran, pullulan, biometals, complexes