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영어

A water-soluble polysaccharide named CF-P1 was extracted and purified from the Capsosiphon fulvescens (green alga, CF) mainly by acidic water extraction and DEAE-cellulose column chromatography. Previously, we reported that CF-P1 is a glucuronorhamnoxylan, an ulvan type polysaccharide typical for green algae, having rhamnoxylan backbone with glucuronic acid and sulfated glucuronic acid units as the side chains. In the present study, we examined anti-cancer effects of CF-P1 on HT-29 human colon cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. This polysaccharide significantly inhibited the growth of HT-29 cells up to 40% at 500 μg/ml and dose dependantly induced DNA fragmentation and cleaveage of caspase 8, 9, 3 and PARP. Enhanced apoptosis by this polysaccharide was dependent on caspase activation. In addition, we examined whether CF-P1 is equally active against HT-29 colon cancer cell xenograft tumors in a mouse model. Administration of CF-P1 through intraperitoneal injection to BALB/c-nu mice bearing HT-29 cells dose-dependently reduced both tumor volume and weight. The histological analysis of tumor tissues with H&E staining showed that CF-P1 decreased the cell numbers in tumor tissues and TUNEL assay showed DNA fragmentation of tumor cells. Taken collectively, these results clearly demonstrated that a water-soluble polysaccharide isolated from C. fulvescens effectively inhibits the tumor growth by induction of apoptotic cell death in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that it can be a good candidate as a potent anti-cancer agent against human colon cancer.