Abstract
Lignans arc one of the major phytochemicals which have many biological activity.In sesame seeds, unique lipid-soluble antioxidative lignans such as sesamolin, pinoresinol and sesaminol together with two major lignans (sesamin and sesamolin). Recently, functional activities of these lignans have been extensively examined and found to exhibit many type of biological activities. Addition of these lipid-soluble lignans, novel type of water-soluble lignan glucosides were also found in defatted sesame seeds, and sesaminol can be produced both during the purification process of sesame salad oil and also by the hydrolysis of sesaminol glucosides by intestinal bacteria. By using in vitro assay system, sesaminol was found to show the strong protective role from LDL oxidation induced by Cu ion and AMVN by evaluation using immunochemical methods. In order to evaluate the protection against atherosclerosis in vivo using rabbits, addition of 10% defatted sesame flour to 1% cholesterol diets protected the formation of atherosclerosis. Addition of 0.2% of the isolated sesaminolglucoside has also been found to significantly reduced the development of atherosclerosis in LDL receptor deficient rabbits (WHHL).
