A 4-week repeated oral dose toxicity study of fucoidan from the Sporophyll of Undaria pinnatifida in Sprague–Dawley rats
Introduction
Fucoidan is a sulfated polysaccharide primarily extracted from brown seaweeds such as Fucus vesiculosus, Ecklonia kurome, and Undaria pinnatitinda (Lee et al., 2004, Nishino et al., 1991, Patankar et al., 1993). Fucoidan has high concentrations of l-fucose, together with minor amounts of other essential sugars, including xylose, galactose, and mannose. Forms such as F-fucoidan, U-fucoidan, and G-fucoidan have been found in diverse seaweed sources and have different biological activities. Compared to other sulfated polysaccharides, fucoidan extracted from U. pinnatitinda has higher sulfate and l-fucose contents. Fucoidan has anti-coagulant, antithrombotic, antitumor, and antiviral activities (Beress et al., 1993, Koyanagi et al., 2003, Pereira et al., 1999, Preeprame et al., 2001).
Despite these activities, detailed studies on the toxicology of fucoidan have not been performed (Gideon and Rengasamy, 2008, Li et al., 2005). Moreover, fucoidan demand has increased for foodstuff and functional food materials, as well as for their nutritive values. Therefore, we tested the toxicity of a 4-week oral trial of fucoidan extracted from the Sporophyll of Undaria pinnatifida in Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats in compliance with the test guidelines from the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) under Good Laboratory Practice regulations for Nonclinical Laboratory Studies.
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Animal husbandry and maintenance
A total of 80 specific pathogen free, 6-week-old SD rats; 40 males weighing between 180.6 and 205.0 g and 40 females weighing between 149.2 and 169.1 g, were purchased from Orient Bio Co. (Kapyong, Korea) and used after a week of quarantine and acclimatization. They were housed in a light-controlled room (light 07:00–19:00) maintained at 21.6–22.4 °C with humidity of 44.5–51.8% and light intensity of 100–200 lx (Korea Testing and Researching Institute, Seoul, Korea). The animals were allowed
Oral toxicity study design
No animals died during the experimental period, and fucoidan did not produce toxic signs in any animals.
Body weights, food intake and water consumption
Fucoidan treatment did not alter weight gain (Fig. 1; P > 0.05) or food and water intake (Table 2; P > 0.05).
Ophthalmoscopy and urinalysis
Ophthalmologic examinations did not reveal treatment-related ocular lesions (data not shown), and fucoidan did not change urinary parameters (Table 3; P > 0.05).
Hematology and serum biochemistry
Fucoidan did not consistently change hematology or serum biochemistry values (Table 4). Fucoidan did not increase the activity of
Discussion
Fucoidan has anti-cancer, anti-proliferation, and anti-coagulation activities (Gavrilova et al., 1997, Religa et al., 2000, Riou et al., 1996), but few studies have tested the oral safety/toxicity of fucoidan (Gideon and Rengasamy, 2008, Li et al., 2005). Fucoidan from different species of algae has different chemical structures, composition, and molecular weights (Zhuang et al., 1995). We therefore tested the safety and biological activity (especially, anti-coagulant evaluation) of fucoidan
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
This research was a part of the project titled (Anti-diabetic mechanism of fucoidan by animal study and transcriptomics, and development of functional food) funded by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, Republic of Korea.
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