[Biological activities of natural resources around us are now in the limelight].
There are various kind of natural resources around us, and they must contain a lot of unknown bioactive substances. Some may be structurally very strange for us, and some are very familiar. But their biological activity was not unfortunately investigated in detail. Accordingly, exploring new types of pharmaceutical resources may give lead compounds of the drugs in the future. Among those natural resources, I examined squid ink and scallop soup. From squid ink, an antitumor glycoconjugate was obtained. Its polysaccharide moieties, illexin A, illexin B and illexin C, were isolated, and the spectral data and chemical transformation of their acid hydrolysate revealed to bear a unique branched repeating unit, [-3GlcA beta 1-4(GalNAc alpha 1-3)Fuc alpha 1-]n. Moreover, scallop soup gave antitumor glycogen by the action of protease. The fine structure of glycogen was investigated by the sequential enzyme digestion method using beta-amylase and pullulanase, while the unit chain was analyzed by high performance anion exchange chromatography. The results showed that the antitumor active glycogen was highly branched with shorter chain than glycogens without antitumor activity.
Takaya
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Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University, Aobayama Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D049832:Decapodiformes / Q000737:chemistry*; D006001:Glycoconjugates / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D008974:Mollusca / Q000737:chemistry*
D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D006001:Glycoconjugates