Fukuda Yuki, Sugahara Takuya, Ueno Masashi, Fukuta Yusuke, Ochi Yukari, Akiyama Koichi, Miyazaki Tatsuhiko, Masuda Seizo, Kawakubo Akihiro, Kato Keiichi
Faculties of Agriculture, Ehime University, 3-5-7 Tarumi Station, Matsuyama, Ehime 790-8566, Japan.
Anticancer Drugs. 2006 Sep;17(8):943-7. doi: 10.1097/01.cad.0000224458.13651.b4.
Eucheuma serra agglutinin (ESA) is a lectin derived from a marine red alga E. serra and binds specifically to mannose-rich sugar chains. Previous reports have indicated that ESA associates with several cancer cells via sugar chains on cell surfaces and induces apoptotic cell death. In this study, we investigated the effect of ESA on Colon26 mouse colon adenocarcinoma cells both in vitro and in vivo. ESA induced cell death against Colon26 cells in vitro, and the expression of caspase-3 and the translocation of phosphatidylserine in ESA-treated Colon26 cells suggested that this cell death was induced through apoptosis. An intravenous injection of ESA significantly inhibited the growth of Colon26 tumors in BALB/c mice; moreover, DNA fragmentation was detected in tumor cells following ESA treatment. These results indicated that ESA is effective as an anti-cancer drug not only in vitro but also in vivo. The side-effects of ESA were not considered to be serious because the decrease in body weight of the mice injected with it was negligible. These observations suggest that ESA has the potential to be an effective anti-tumor drug.
锯齿麒麟菜凝集素（ESA）是一种从海洋红藻锯齿麒麟菜中提取的凝集素，它能特异性结合富含甘露糖的糖链。先前的报道表明，ESA通过细胞表面的糖链与多种癌细胞结合，并诱导细胞凋亡性死亡。在本研究中，我们在体外和体内研究了ESA对Colon26小鼠结肠腺癌细胞的影响。ESA在体外可诱导Colon26细胞死亡，并且在经ESA处理的Colon26细胞中，caspase-3的表达及磷脂酰丝氨酸的转位表明这种细胞死亡是通过凋亡诱导的。静脉注射ESA可显著抑制BALB/c小鼠体内Colon26肿瘤的生长；此外，在ESA处理后的肿瘤细胞中检测到了DNA片段化。这些结果表明，ESA不仅在体外而且在体内均作为一种抗癌药物有效。由于注射ESA的小鼠体重减轻可忽略不计，因此ESA的副作用被认为不严重。这些观察结果表明，ESA有潜力成为一种有效的抗肿瘤药物。
