In vitro effects of fucans on MDA-MB231 tumor cell adhesion and invasion.

Fucans are sulphated polysaccharides extracted from brown seaweed, which display a wide scale of activities including inhibition of tumour cell invasion. Like several sulphated polysaccharides, they have been shown to be potent inhibitors of experimental metastasis. However, their mechanism of action is not fully understood Using standard adhesion and chemoinvasion assays, we demonstrated that fucans can inhibit MDA-MB231 cell invasion through matrigel.