Abstract
Agglutinating activities of the skin mucus extract (SME) from Japanese eel were examined against bacteria isolated from water and skin of reared eels in an experimental aquarium. The SME agglutinated 60 out of 152 bacterial isolates from the rearing water (water group), and 40 out of 130 bacterial isolates from eel skin (skin group). The agglutinating activities tended to be higher against bacterial isolates in the water group than those in the skin group, suggesting the skin mucus agglutinins are efficient for excluding bacteria from the skin. Lactose, which is known as a specific carbohydrate recognized by the eel skin mucus lectin, inhibited agglutination against 36% bacterial isolates in the water group and 35% in the skin group. This result shows that SME contains more than one kind of bacterial agglutinins.
