Pheophytin Content and Cytotoxicity of Silkworm Feces Against Jurkat Cells According to Dry Method and Storage Period

In order to find potential anticancer agents, we extracted pheophytin from silkworm feces according to various dry and storage methods such as sun dry, shade dry, fresh freezing dry and freezing dry after freezing storage (for 1∼3 years). The pheophytin extracts, mainly 10-hydroxypheophytin a, little b, of various storage silkworm feces were analyzed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array and fluorescence detection. The content of those pheophytih in old silkworm for 3 years (freezing storage and freezing dried in use, or freezing dried and cold storage) was better than others. The cytotoxicity of the pheophytin extracts and ethanol extracts of various storage silkworm feces were measured using Jurkat cells originated from human leukemia, using dye uptake assay (MTT) in order to find effective photodynamic therapeutic agents. The anticancer activity of those pheophytin extracts in various storage methods showed little difference among them. But ethanol extracts of fresh freezing dried silkworm in the current year was good cytotoxic activity than those of any other silkworm feces. With regards to these results, fresh ethanol extracts of silkworm feces were better than old ones. On the other hands, the pheophytin extracts of old silkworm feces contained the highest percentage of pheophytin content and showed good cytotoxicity against cancer cells by changing the pheophytin into pheophobide in the degradative process.