{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,18]],"date-time":"2026-06-18T17:39:08Z","timestamp":1781804348070,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,4]],"date-time":"2026-03-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1772582400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003453","name":"Guangdong Natural Science Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2022B1515120083"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2022B1515120083"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003453","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Foods"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The spherical pectin is an important bioactive component of chrysanthemum tea infusion, but its biological function, primary structure, and structure-activity relationship remain unclear. The present study evaluated the immunostimulatory activity of spherical pectin from Chrysanthemummorifolium Ramat. \u2018Hangbaiju\u2019 tea infusion in RAW264.7 cells and preliminarily investigated its structure-immunostimulatory activity relationship. The rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I) domain played a key role in the immunostimulatory activity of spherical pectin. Terminal and branched arabinose residues together accounted for 73.8% of the total arabinose residues in spherical pectin, indicating that the arabinan chains of spherical pectin were highly branched. The backbone of these arabinan chains consisted of \u21925)-\u03b1-Araf-(1\u2192 repeats, and additional \u21925)-\u03b1-Araf-(1\u2192 branches were linked to the backbone via \u03b1-1,3-glycosidic linkages. The spherical pectin rich in highly branched arabinan chains activated RAW264.7 cells via recognition by toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Molecular docking analysis revealed that \u21925)-\u03b1-Araf-(1\u2192 branches in spherical pectin could bind to toll-like receptor 4\/myeloid differentiation protein-2 (TLR4\/MD-2) complexes and stabilize the dimer structure, which represents an important mechanism for its immunostimulatory activity. This study provides new insights into the structure-function relationship of spherical pectin.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/foods15050863","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,5]],"date-time":"2026-03-05T13:11:22Z","timestamp":1772716282000},"page":"863","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Preliminary Exploration of Structure-Immunostimulatory Activity Correlation of Spherical Pectin from Chrysanthemum Tea Infusion"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"An","family":"Peng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Food Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China"},{"name":"Guangdong Food Green Processing and Nutrition Regulation Technologies Research Center, Guangzhou 510641, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mouming","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Food Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China"},{"name":"Guangdong Food Green Processing and Nutrition Regulation Technologies Research Center, Guangzhou 510641, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7873-3894","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lijun","family":"You","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Food Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China"},{"name":"Guangdong Food Green Processing and Nutrition Regulation Technologies Research Center, Guangzhou 510641, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lianzhu","family":"Lin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Food Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China"},{"name":"Guangdong Food Green Processing and Nutrition Regulation Technologies Research Center, Guangzhou 510641, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"139423","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijbiomac.2024.139423","article-title":"Extraction methods, structural features and bioactivity diversity of polysaccharides from the genus Chrysanthemum: A review","volume":"293","author":"Yu","year":"2025","journal-title":"Int. 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