The ability to exhibit various bioactivities is widespread in exopolysaccharide (EPS) of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), and it has been admittedly associated with large structural variability of these polymers. Exceptional bioactivities such as cholesterol-lowering, immunomodulating, antioxidant, antiviral and anticoagulant effects render these biopolymers vast commercial value for global market and application potentials in medicine sector. Therefore, an elaborate understanding of structure-to-function associations will be prerequisite to search natural and artificial EPSs for new applications in functional food, health and medicine fields. In this review, it is presented a significant overview of the latest advances in the field of EPS from genes to application. This review emphasized in the general biosynthesis pathway together with genetic modules, multiple structures, functions, and respective functional mechanisms of LAB-derived EPSs, and the relationships between their structure and bioactivity, which will help to exploit new bioactive drugs from LAB-derived EPS.

表现出各种生物活性的能力广泛存在于乳酸菌（LAB）的胞外多糖（EPS）中，并且已经公认与这些聚合物的大结构变异性相关。出色的生物活性，例如降低胆固醇，免疫调节，抗氧化剂，抗病毒和抗凝血作用，使这些生物聚合物在全球市场和医药领域的应用潜力具有巨大的商业价值。因此，对结构与功能的关联有一个详尽的了解将是寻找天然和人工EPS在功能食品，健康和医药领域中的新应用的先决条件。在这篇综述中，它提供了从基因到应用的EPS领域最新进展的重要概述。