Correction to: Pectic polysaccharides from panax ginseng as the antirotavirus principals in ginseng (Biomacromolecules (2010) 11: 8 (2044-2052) DOI: 10.1021/bm100397p)

We would like to add a missing reference to the text in the fourth paragraph of the Introduction, page 2045.1 It is the first paper reporting the antirotavirus effect of crude polysaccharides extracted from ginseng. This study had motivated us to investigate in depth the structure and inhibitory mechanism of purified ginseng polysaccharides. The additional sentence with the missing reference is underlined as follows: The ethnopharmacological remedies of medicinal plants for diarrheal disease are described in the old medical literatures in Oriental medicine. Ginseng is one of those medicinal plants for diarrheal disease. Regular administration of ginseng has been known to improve the gastrointestinal function and prevent diarrheal disease. Moreover, it was reported that crude ginseng polysaccharides extracted from ginseng inhibited rotavirus infection.1 However, to the best of our knowledge, active principals of ginseng for diarrheal disease have still been unclear. In this study, we establish the protective effect of ginseng on in vitro model of rotavirus infection, the top-ranked cause of diarrhea. Two antirotavirus pectic polysaccharides were purified from ginseng by bioassay-linked fractionation. The mode of protection was an inhibition of viral attachment on the host cells rather than virucidal effect. Our results illustrate that pectic polysaccharides in ginseng are responsible for the antidiarrheal effect of ginseng. Our study is valuable in providing novel methodology and insight for developing new strategies as well as discovering new drug candidates for the prevention of rotavirus-induced diarrhea.