Ascophyllan

Marine algae are major sources of industrially important polysaccharides, including agar, carrageenan, alginate, and many others. In a recent study, the presence of ascophyllan was confirmed as a separated fraction from the fucoidan fraction in the extracts prepared from Ascophyllum nodosum. A. nodosum collected on the coast of Norway was obtained from KAISEI Co. Shimonoseki, Japan, and used as a raw material. In brief, A. nodosum was pretreated with diluted HCl to remove inorganic cations. To gain basic information on the differences in the biological activities of ascophyllan and fucoidan at the cellular level, the cytotoxic effects of ascophyllan and fucoidan isolated from A. nodosum on various cell lines were compared. These results suggest that the cytotoxicity of ascophyllan and fucoidan are dependent on the cell lines, and the similar profiles of cell line-dependent cytotoxicity may suggest that these polysaccharides have some common cytotoxic mechanisms.