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It is widely acknowledged that the excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) or reactive nitrogen species (RNS) induced oxidative stress will cause significant damage to cell structure and biomolecular function, directly or indirectly leading to a number of diseases. The overproduction of ROS/RNS will be balanced by nonenzymatic antioxidants and antioxidant enzymes. Polysaccharide or glycoconjugates derived from natural products are of considerable interest from the viewpoint of potent in vivo and in vitro antioxidant activities recently. Particularly, with regard to the in vitro antioxidant systems, polysaccharides are considered as effective free radical scavenger, reducing agent, and ferrous chelator in most of the reports. However, the underlying mechanisms of these antioxidant actions have not been illustrated systematically and sometimes controversial results appeared among various literatures. To address this issue, we summarized the latest discoveries and advancements in the study of antioxidative polysaccharides and gave a detailed description of the possible mechanisms.

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