Chemical and biological properties of subfractions of hot-water extract from delipidated BCG.

MOTOMIYA, M., SATO, H., ARAI, H., NAGAI, H., ITO, M., SATOH, K., KUMANO, N. and KONNO, K. Chemical and Biological Properties of Subfractions of Hot-Water Extract from Delipidated BCG. Tohoku J. exp. Med., 1981, 133 (3), 293-300-A hot-water extract from delipidated Mycobacterium bovis strain BCG was fractionated by precipitation with ethanol. The chemical and biological properties of the subfractions thus obtained were investigated. A subfraction precipitated at 20% ethanol contained less neutral sugar and more ninhydrin-positive substance than other subfractions. Only the guinea pigs that were treated with 20% ethanol-precipitate showed no humoral antibody response to egg white albumin, despite positive skin reaction. The subfractions precipitated at low concentrations of ethanol exhibited a significant antitumor activity in ddY and C3H/He mice inoculated intraperitoneally with tumor cells. These results suggest that the hot-water extract from delipidated BCG consists of subfractions with different chemical and biological properties.