We conducted a double-blind randomized controlled study of elderly individuals in a nursing home to investigate the effect of the consumption of jelly containing sea cucumber on their oral Candida load. The jelly contained a hydrolysate of the sea cucumber Stichopus japonicus, which contained triterpene glycosides called holotoxins. The holotoxins worked as a fungicide, and their minimum inhibi...

Members of the phylum Echinodermata, commonly known as echinoderms, are exclusively marine invertebrates. Among the Echinodermata, sea cucumber belongs to the family Holothuroidea. The sea cucumber Stichopus (Apostichous) japonicus (Selenka) is an invertebrate animal inhabiting the coastal sea around Korean, Japan, China, and Russia. Sea cucumber has a significant commercial value, because it c...

Twelve deposit-feeding species of tropical holothuroid echinoderms (families Holothuriidae and Stichopodidae) were surveyed for the presence of UV-absorbing mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) during Austral summer at Hicks Reef, Great Barrier Reef (GBR). An additional species belonging to the Synaptidae was collected in Austral winter from Shrimp Reef, GBR. Tissues of all species contained MAA...

Malaysian sea cucumber was incorporated into hydrogel formulation by using electron beam irradiation technique and was introduced as novel cross-linked Gamat Hydrogel dressing. This study investigated whether Gamat Hydrogel enhanced repair of deep partial skin thickness burn wound in rats and its possible mechanism. Wounds were treated with either Gamat Hydrogel, control hydrogel, OpSite® film ...

Freeze drying (FD) yields the best quality of dried sea cucumber but at the cost of long drying time and also the overall cost. Air drying (AD) gives an unacceptably poor quality product. To achieve faster drying along with a high quality product a microwave freeze drying (MFD) technique was developed to dry sea cucumbers. The relationship between corona discharge and microwave power at various...

1. The effect of mechanical vibration on active tension in an echinoderm somatic smooth muscle was studied using the longitudinal retractor muscle (LRM) of a sea cucumber Stichopus japonicus. 2. The steady contracture tension in LRM fibres maximally activated with 10(-3) mol l-1 acetylcholine (ACh) was reduced by vibrations (peak-to-peak amplitude, 0.5­2.5 % of l0, where l0 is the slack len...