β-Glucan is a natural polymer, which is widely studied due to its multiple immunomodulatory properties. In addition, recent findings indicate potent antitumor properties of β-glucan. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, baker’s yeast, is one of the commonly used sources of β-1,3-glucan. The aim of this work was to investigate S. cerevisiae β-glucan immunomodulatory activity against cancer cells. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2015) 39: 562-566 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article S. cerevisiae β-glucan reduced viability of mouse hepatoma cells in vitro 1,2, 2 1 2 Artur JAVMEN *, Aušra NEMEIKAITĖ-ČĖNIENĖ , Saulius GRIGIŠKIS , Irena JONAUSKIENĖ , 1 1 2 Mark RUDENKOV , Darius KAČIANAUSKAS , Mykolas MAURICAS 1 JSC “Biocentras”, Vilnius, Lithuania 2 Department of Immunology, State Scientific Research Institute Centre for Innovative Medicine, Vilnius, Lithuania Received: Accepted/Published Online: Printed: Abstract: β-Glucan is a natural polymer, which is widely studied due to its multiple immunomodulatory properties. In addition, recent findings indicate potent antitumor properties of β-glucan. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, baker’s yeast, is one of the commonly used sources of β-1,3-glucan. The aim of this work was to investigate S. cerevisiae β-glucan immunomodulatory activity against cancer cells. In our experiments, BALB/c mice were fed with insoluble whole β-glucan particles, and then their blood was collected for experiments. MH22a hepatoma cells were treated with the blood of mice fed with β-glucan, and tumor cell viability was investigated after the treatment. The obtained results demonstrated that leukocytes in vivo primed with whole glucan particles, in combination with soluble β-glucan, decreased MH-22a hepatoma cell viability in vitro. Our study has indicated that β-glucan obtained from S. cerevisiae potentially primes mouse whole blood leukocytes to induce cell death of mouse hepatoma cells. Key words: β-Glucan, yeast, cancer, mice 1. Introduction β-Glucan is a natural polymer made of glucose monomers linked by β-glycosidic bonds. It is produced by various organisms including bacteria, fungi, and plants. β-Glucan polymer modifications in a variety of organisms result in differences in their glycosidic linkage position, structure, and complexity, .
