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As natural polymers, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum exopolysaccharides (EPS) possess a wide range of bioactivities but suffer from low yields and unclear relationships between functional activity and structure. To this end, the chemical structure and bioactive properties of EPS from Lactiplantibacillus plantarum MY04 were investigated. As a result, three polysaccharide fractions (EPS-1, EPS-2, EPS-3) were separated and purified, of which EPS-2 had better antioxidant activity and α-glucosidase inhibitory ability. More importantly, EPS-2 can significantly enhance insulin sensitivity in HepG2 cells by upregulating enzyme activities in the glycolytic pathway and mitigating oxidative stress-induced damage. In addition, the structural characterization of EPS-2 was also comprehensively elucidated. It was found that EPS-2 was mainly composed of mannose with a molecular weight of 2.3 × 10 6  Da, and its main chain structure is →3)-Manp-(1 → 2)-Manp-(1 → 2,6)-Manp-(1 → 2,6)-Manp-(1→, providing a theoretical basis for understanding the relationship between structure and function of polysaccharides., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

In order to develop pullulan/gelatin-based gels as potential extracellular matrix-mimetic scaffolds, a "one-step" synthesis method using 1,1'‑carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) as activator in DMSO under mild conditions was reported for the first time. Particularly, in contrast to conventional critical requirement of absolute dryness for CDI, it was interesting to find that the formation of gels could be accomplished in the presence of aqueous solvent within a much shorter time, while obtaining improved mechanical properties as demonstrated by compressive tests. UV-Visible spectroscopy, NMR spectrum, TEM and SEM analysis have been employed to evaluate the underlying reaction mechanisms. This method implied that absolute dryness might not be necessary for using CDI as activator in certain cases. This method also represents a new rapid and efficient approach for synthesizing a great variety of chemically crosslinked polysaccharide/protein-based gels as promising material platform potential for tissue engineering and drug delivery applications., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)