BIOORGANIC STUDIES ON BIOFUNCTIONAL COMPONENTS IN VEGETABLES FOR CHEMICAL BREEDING

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These epidemiological predictions suggest that vegetables and fruits contain anticancer or antitumor-promoting components. Thus the physiologically functional components in vegetables could be good sources of chemopreventive agents with low-toxicity available in our daily food supply. In this research project, antitumor promoting and antioxidating components were searched in spinach, burdock, moroheiya and broccoli. The results were shown below.1. Two kinds of monogalactosyldiacylgricerols having unsaturated fatty acids were isolated and identified as antitumor promoting components. The activity was almost the same with active components isolated from medicinal plants. In addition, the contents significantly varied among the cultivars and with culture conditions.2. Three chlorogenic acid derivatives known as antioxidating activity were identified in burdock. The contents also varied among the cultivars.3. Young jute (moroheiya) leaves were found to contain monogalactosyldiacylgricerols having unsaturated fatty acids and a diterpene, phytol, as antitumor promoting components. The contents increased after treatment with hot water, suggesting that these active components did not decompose during cocking.4. Two monoacylglycerides were isolated from flower buds of broccoli as antitumor promoters. These components could be interestingly derived from monogalactosyldiacylgricerols during catabolism in human body.These results indicate that vegetables contain many biofunctional components useful for keeping health well and that the contents of functional components significantly vary among the cultivars.