Porphyran is a major component of the red algae, Porphyra tenera and P. yezoensis, which are processed into a sheet type of dried food, ''Nori''. Porphyran has been reported to activate murine macrophages by in vitro and i.p. injection studies. The contact hypersensitivity (CHS) reaction in mice is commonly used as a model to evaluate the anti-allergic activity of food and food components. We therefore studied the effect of porphyran on the CHS reaction in Balb/c mice to evaluate anti-allergic activity of porphyran. We found that an oral administration of porphyran (2% in drinking water) suppressed the CHS reaction (ear edema) induced by 2,4,6-trinitrochlorobenzene. We also found that porphyran suppressed the serum level of IgE and the production of interferon-(IFN-) in the challenged ear lobe. We conclude from these results that the CHS reaction was suppressed by oral porphyran due to the decreased serum level of IgE and the production of IFN-in the challenged ear lobe.

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Glycerol galactoside (GG; floridoside + isofloridoside) and porphyra-334 (P-334) are contained in nori (Susabinori Porphyra yezoensis and Asakusanori Porphyra tenera). Glycerol galactoside has been found to have bifidogenic growth stimulator activity and P-334 is known to have ultraviolet-absorbing activity in the UVA region of sunlight. These substances have, respectively, potential for application to pre-biotic foods and in cosmetics as a sunscreen. In the present study, to investigate the relationships between GG and P-334 contents and the quality of nori, we measured the GG and P-334 contents with other components (total protein, chlorophyll-a, b-carotene and phycobillins) that are related to the quality of nori samples produced from different production areas and with different qualities. We found that the GG content was closely negatively correlated with the contents of other components, whereas P-334 was positively correlated with the other components. From these results, it is suggested that low-quality nori is a potential source of GG, and as a source for P-334, scraps of nori produced during nori processing should be suitable.

The white-rot shiitake mushroom, Lentinula edodes, was used to degrade an environmentally hazardous compound, 2,4-dichlorophenol (DCP), using vanillin as an activator. Vanillin increased the mycelial growth from 74 to 118 mg/150 ml culture and accelerated laccase and Mn-peroxidase production from the maximum on days 24-28 without vanillin to days 10-14. It eliminated 92% of 100 mM DCP with 50 mg vanillin/l compared with only 15% without vanillin. GC-MS revealed that a diaryl ether dimer of DCP was formed in the culture without vanillin, whereas dimer formation was diminished with vanillin addition. This indicates that vanillin enhances the degradation of DCP and disrupts the formation of the toxic dimer. Therefore, lignin-derived phenol such as vanillin can be used as natural and eco-friendly activators to control white-rot mushrooms, thereby facilitating the effective degradation of environmentally hazardous compounds.

Glycerol galactoside (GG; floridoside: 2-O-glycerol-a-D-galactopyranoside, and isofloridoside: 1-O-glycerola-D-galactopyranoside) is known to be a component of edible red seaweed nori. Recently, we have found that lowquality nori (color-faded nori), which has a low protein content, contains a large quantity of GG. From further studies, we have also found that GG has prebiotic characteristics in vitro. In this study, we evaluated the in vivo prebiotic activity of GG in rats. Dietary GG selectively increased the cecal Bifidobacterium count in rats. Other indices of prebiotics, such as pH of cecal content, organic acid concentrations, and fecal weight, also supported the existence of prebiotic activity of GG. The present data will also contribute to the development of a new method of utilizing color-faded nori as a health-promoting foodstuff.