Фукоиданы бурых водорослей: влияние элементов молекулярной архитектуры на функциональную активность

The review covers the history of the discovery and nomenclature of fucoidans — an interesting group of fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides extracted from brown algae (Phaeophyceae) with a wide range of promising biological activities. The factors affecting complex molecular structure of these heterogeneous biopolymers are characterized; the authors give an overview of a series of original articles clarifying the role of the bioglycan molecular structure elements (chemical groups, molecular weight, glycosidic linkages, monosaccharides) on some biological properties — anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, etc. Despite a long history of studying fucoidans, unraveling the role of certain fucoidans' structural features is far from being complete because of the molecular complexity caused by both endogeneous and environmental factors, as well as by reproducibility issues of extraction processes. The sources of scientific literature were found in various electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Science Direct) and library search.