An antitumor fucoidan fraction from an edible brown seaweed, Laminaria religiosa

Abstract

Certain seaweeds have long been used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of cancer. In a series of our experiments on the antitumor effect of seaweeds, we previously examined the antitumor activity of twenty samples, i.e., hotwater extracts and their nondialyzable fractions, prepared from ten edible seaweeds, against L-1210 leukemia in mice. We found that the main active component may be a sulfated polysaccharide,judging from the results of chemical analysis (Yamamoto et al. 1982). Among the active algal specimens were the five brown seaweeds Laminaria angustata var. longissima, L. japonica, L. japonica var. ochotensis, Ecklonia cava, and Eisenia bicyclis, and the green seaweed Monostroma nitidum.