TABLE OF CONTENTS Hiang-Lian King a , Kaswandi b Mohamed Ambis a , FeoiPeng Hea a , Normalawati bte Samsudin a , Ridzwan b Mashim a , Mohamed Wahid b Samsudin a and Abdul Mauaf b Ali b
a Department of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Raja Muda Abd. Aziz, 50300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
b Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Nutrition and Biotechnology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43000 Serdang, Selangor DE, Malaysia
Sea cucumber is a marine invertebrate from the phylum, Echinodermata. The sea cucumber has a specific organ called the cuvier gland [1] which produces a toxin known as holothurin or saponin [2]. Seasonal variation and distribution of holothurin occur in the animal where the content of holothurin in ovaries is higher than that in other organs during the breeding season [3]. Holothurin are mainly utilized in defense and have a wide range of pharmacological effects [4]. Toxicological studies of the saponin were pioneered in 1955 [2]. Saponin is a monosacharide complex with steroid or triterpenoid with/without sulphuric acids [5]. Sea cucumber saponin is a triterpenoid type while starfish contains steroid type saponin [6]. Cytotoxic effects of extracts from sea cucumber were reported using sarcoma cells-180 as a model [7] followed by experiments using sarkina epidermal cells and Enrich cells [8]. Holothurin treatment has been proven to extend the survival of rats with sarcoma-180 but is only effective when administered slightly lower than the mortality dosage. Holothurin also inactivate ascites Kreb-2 tumor cells in vitro
