isolated and purified following the method of Adesulu-Dahunsi et al.11 (link) with slight modifications. After cell cultivation
and collection, SMW was heated at 100 °C for 10 min to inactivate
the enzymes, and the debris was removed by centrifugation (10 000g for 20 min at 4 °C). Three volumes of 95% (v/v) cold
ethanol were added to the supernatant and stored at −4 °C
overnight and then centrifuged (10 000g for
20 min at 4 °C). Crude EPS (cEPS) was obtained after ethanol
precipitation and lyophilization. To remove the protein, cEPS was
dissolved in distilled water and deproteinized using 4% (v/v) trichloroacetic
acid (TCA). cEPS was reprecipitated with three volumes of 95% (v/v)
cold ethanol and dissolved in distilled water. Finally, dialysis was
conducted twice daily with distilled water for 2 days at 4 °C
using dialysis cassettes (Slide-A-Lyzer 10K MWCO, Thermo Scientific,
Waltham, MA) and then lyophilized. The final residual was termed pure
EPS (pEPS).