Antimutagenic and anticancer effects of kimchi fractions were studied by using
Salmonella typhimurium TA100 and HL-60 human leukemia cells, respectively. The
chinese cabbage kimchi(4 day fermented at 15oC) was fractionated into 7 groups,
methanol extract, hexane fraction(fr.), methanol soluble fr., dichloromethane fr.,
ethylacetate fr., butanol fr. and aqueous fr. The dichloromethane fr. and hexane fr. of
the kimchi exhibited strong antimutagenic activities compared to other fractionated
samples, especially dichloromethane fr. inhibited the mutagenicity of aflatoxin B1(AFB1)
by more than 90% in the Ames test. The kimchi fractions inhibited the survival or growth
of HL-60 human leukemia cells in the sulforhodamine B(SRB) assay,
3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide(MTT) assay and growth
inhibition test. All the kimchi fractions inhibited survival of HL-60 leukemia cells more
than 50% in the addition concentration of 0.2 mg/assay, in particular dichloromethane
fr. showed the strongest inhibitory effect (more than 90%) among them. Moreover
dichloromethane fr. of the kimchi induced apoptosis in HL-60 human leukemia cells
by the DNA fragmentation assay. These results suggested that the kimchi fractions,
especially dichloromethane fr. exerted the survival or growth inhibitory effect on HL-60
human leukemia cells as well as antimutagenic activity, and the dichloromethane fr. also
induced apoptosis in the leukemia cells.

Keywords: Kimchi, Antimutagenicity, SRB, MTT, Apoptosis, HL-60 cells