1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sponge protein solution for use as food product materials, pet food materials, cosmetics or medicinal products and to provide a growth stimulating effect on cells derived from mammals, which is obtained by dissolving dried sponges and then neutralizing the resultant supernatant.
The present invention further relates to sponge protein hydrolysates which are obtained by hydrolyzing sponge skeleton fibers (spongin fibers) obtained from sponges of Spongia which belongs to Porifera, with light coloring.
2. Description of the Related Art
Until now, attempts have been made to isolate and purify useful proteins from materials which are usually discarded as wastes, such as the blood from slaughtering in the livestock industry, and stick water, waste water concentrates from fish meat soaking water, or canned food broth in the fish processing industry. However, virtually nothing ha been reported about the effective use of proteins from poriferans, which are fibrous sponges.
Poriferans have been conventionally used as sponges for body cleansing or cosmetic use, and are today regularly used as high-quality sponges because these sponges are highly water absorbent and extremely gentle to the skin as compared to other natural and synthetic sponges. But in reality, they are used only for cleansing, cosmetic or the like and not effectively for other purposes. Furthermore, no useful application had been found for the unused shavings from those poriferans used as the abovementioned sponges, and had inevitably been discarded.
Analysis showed that besides water, the fibrous substance used as poriferan sponges are comprised primarily of proteins, and an amino acid analysis showed that the proteins are rich in useful amino acids such as glycine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, proline and arginine. However, a beneficial use of these poriferan sponges has yet to be found.
Further, in the conventional utilization of poriferans (phylum Porifera), spongin fibers obtained from sponges of family Spongia (order Keratosa, class Demospongea) comprise odorless, soft and highly absorbent spongy structures and have long been used as an absorbent for water, a dusting material for lithographs, a cleansing material for babies or an applicator for cosmetics.
Recently, attention has been drawn to the more value-added use of sponge components, and anti-cancer components, protein adsorbing enzymes or the like have been extracted from sponges. Analysis shows that the spongin fiber component of family Spongia consists of marine proteins rich in amino acids such as glycine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, proline and arginine, which are effective in human cell growth stimulation when used as cosmetics, medicinal products and food products. However, little is known about the technology for utilizing marine protein hydrolysates derived from sponges in cosmetics, medicinal products, food products or the like.