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Buxiang Sun, Tsutomu Kanazawa, Yuko Ohno and Tomomi Mukoda |
| AHCC (Active Hexose Correlated Compounds) has complicated components whose molecular weights are about 500-1,000,000. Up to now, AHCC has shown obvious effects on many diseases and disorders, but the mechanism has remained unclear. As shown in our previous studies, AHCC possesses at least two biological activities. The first one activates immunological systems, for example, AHCC induced macrophages to produce nitrogen oxide (NO). The second one is that AHCC can be biotransfered to active factors to inhibit the growth of tumor cells. This study is to indicate whether both different mechanisms relate to different AHCC components. |
| Methods 1. Fractions of AHCC: |
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| 2. Assay of biological activities
of the fractions: 8 week-old Balb/c mouse was administered these fractions: (p.o. 500-1,000mg/kg bw) for 3 days. Four hours after the last administration, the mouse was killed, and the serum and macrophages were collected. The serum obtained from AHCC or AHCC fractions was added to tumor-cell media (3LL and Colon 20 cell lines) at 5% concentration. The growth conditions were assayed with MTT-kit after the tumor cells were cultured for 72 hours. On the other hand, the macrophages were cultured with LPS (100 ng/ml) for 16 hours and the contents of NO produced by macrophages were measured with Griess-method. Results: AHCC and its fractions showed the results in the following table. |
| Inhibition of Tumor Cell | Macrophage Activities | |
| Control | -- | + |
| AHCC | + | ++ |
| AHCC Deposits | -- | +++ |
| Acidic Fraction | -- | + |
| Alkaline Fraction | -- | + |
| Low Molecular Glucan | ++ | + |
| High Molecular Glucan | + | ++++ |
| MeOH-Fraction | -- | + |
| Water-Acetone-fraction | -- | + |
| --: negative; +: not obviously positive; +: positive; ++: obviously positive; +++: strongly positive; ++++: very strongly positive. | ||
| Discussion: 1. The low molecular glucan of AHCC shows antitumor effects not by activating immunological systems but by some substances biotransfered from the glucan. 2. The high molecular glucan of AHCC probably stimulates the immunological system including macrophages to show the antitumor effects. 3. All the effective components in AHCC are neutral and easily dissolved in water. |
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