Abstract
Eucheuma serra agglutinin (ESA) derived from a marine red alga, Eucheuma serra, is a lectin that specifically binds to mannose-rich carbohydrate chains. ESA is a monomeric molecule, with a molecular weight of29,000. ESA induced cell death against several cancer cell lines, such as colon cancer Colo201 cells and cervix cancer HeLa cells. DNA ladder detection and the induction of caspase-3 activity suggested that the cell death induced by ESA against cancer cells was apoptosis. ESA bound to the cell surface of Colo201 cells in the sugar chain dependent manner. This means that the binding of ESA to the cell surface is specific for mannose-rich sugar chains recognized by ESA. The binding of ESA to the cell surface of Colo201 cells was slightly suppressed by the high concentrations of serum because of the competition with serum components possessing the mannose-rich sugar chain motifs. On the other hand, a lipid vesicle is a very useful microcapsule constructed by multilamellar structure,and adopted as drug or gene carrier. ESA was immobilized on the surface of the lipid vesicles to apply the lipid vesicles to cancer specific drug delivery system. ESA-immobilized lipid vesicles were effectively bound to cancer cell lines compared with plane vesicles.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kato K, Ikeda T & Shinozaki M (1993) Lipid-membrane characteristic of large lipid-vesicles prepared by two-step emulsification technique and enzymatic NAD+-recycling in the vesicles. J Chem Eng Japan 26: 212–216.
Kato K & Hirata K (1996) Water permeability through the lipid membrane of a giant vesicle prepared by a two-step emulsification technique. Solvent Extraction Research and Development 3: 62–78.
Kato K, Sugahara T, Maruyama Y, Yoshimura N, A, Tateishi N, Suzuki Y, Kawakubo A & Sasaki T (1999a) Study of DDS for a cancer therapy applying lipid vesicle immobilizing Eucheuma serra lectin. Animal Cell Technology: Products from Cells, Cells as Products: pp. 429–431.
Kato K, Sugahara T, Kawashima S, Hayashi Y, Yoshihiro A & Sasaki T (1999b) Study of the specific binding between lipid vesicles and human-human hybridoma toward either DDS or gene transfection. In: Animal Cell Technology: Products from Cells, Cells as Products, pp. 433–435.
Kawakubo A, Makino H, Ohnishi J, Hirohara H & Hori K (1997) The marine red alga Eucheuma serra J. Agardh, a high yielding source of two isolectins. J Appl Physiol 9: 331–338.
Ogata S, Takeuchi M, Okumura K & Taguchi H (1998) Apoptosis induced by niacin-related compounds in HL-60 cells. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem 62: 2351–2356.
Sharon N & Lis H (1972) Lectins: cell-agglutinating and sugarspecific proteins. Science 177: 949–959.
Sumi S, Arai K, Kitahara S & Yoshida K (1999) Serial lectin affinity chromatography demonstrates altered asparagines-linked sugar chain structures of prostate-specific antigen in human prostate carcinoma. J Chromatogr B 727: 9–14.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sugahara, T., Ohama, Y., Fukuda, A. et al. The cytotoxic effect of Eucheuma serra agglutinin (ESA) on cancer cells and its application to molecular probe for drug delivery system using lipid vesicles. Cytotechnology 36, 93–99 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014057407251
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014057407251