We report an efficient method for extraction of anionic polysaccharides (PS) from cyanobacteria, Aphanothece sacrum; we used a hot alkaline solution (0.01 N NaOH) as an elution solvent in the first step of the extraction and isopropanol as a precipitation solvent in the last step. Thin fibers of PS were obtained at a high yield (50-80 % to the weight of the raw cyanobacterial sample). The spectroscopy and elemental analyses indicated the PS contains fucose, uronic acids (14.2 % by a carbazole-sulfuric acid method), a sugar unit containing amides. The solution of PS with a concentration of 1 wt% showed a very high viscosity (80 000cps) implying a high molecular weight, and a strong macroscopic birefringence with a texture typical of nematic liquid crystals was confirmed by crossed-polarizing microscopy (more than 0.5 wt%). The PS from A. sacrum may form a special structure rigid-rod enough to show LC phase and macroscopic birefringence.
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