Abstract
Kurozu is brewed rice vinegar which has been traditionally produced in Kagoshima prefecture, Japan. When Kurozu which was concentrated by decompression and whose acetic acid was removed are orally administered to mice for 21 days, their splenic natural killer (NK) activity was significantly enhanced. This concentrated Kurozu was subjected to Sephadex G-25 gel filtration to obtain 4 fractions. The 1st fraction having the largest molecular weight (hereinafter, Fractionated-Kurozu) has much sugar and the main components of the sugar were mannose and glucose. After sarcoma-180-bearing mice were orally administered fractionated-Kurozu for 16 days, the enhancement of the tumor was suppressed. On 3 days after inoculation, the NK activity and cytokine productions were significantly enhanced by feeding them the fractionated-Kurozu. These results suggested that Kurozu had antitumor activity and that the antitumor mechanism might be related to immunostimulation activities through the increase of NK activity and cytokine productions.
