Carthamus tinctorius L. is a kind of Chinese traditional and herbal drugs. Polysaccharides as effective ingredients have extensive pharmaceutic values especially as the immune regulators. CTP is the water soluble polysaccharide isolated from the Carthamus tinctorius L.. By means of HPLC, partial hydrolysis with acid, periodate oxidation, Smith degradation, GC, methylation and GC-MS analysis, {}+{13}C NMR spectroscopy, the structure of CTP was identified. CTP is a kind of small molecular weight polysaccharide with many branches. The main chain of CTP is made up of(1→4)-linked-Glc with five side chains. They are(1→3,6), (1→6), (1→)-linked-Gal, (1→2)-linked-Glc, (1→6), (1→)-linked-Glc, and two(1→6)-linked-Glc respectively.
