Antitumor activity of deoxyribonucleic acid fraction from Mycobacterium bovis BCG. I. Isolation, physicochemical characterization, and antitumor activity.

A fraction extracted from Mycobacterium bovis strain BCG, which was composed of 70.0% DNA, 28.0% RNA, 1.3% protein, 0.20% glucose, and 0.1% lipid and of no detectable amounts of cell wall components such as alpha, epsilon-diaminopimelic acid and hexosamine, was found to possess strong antitumor activity. Repeated intralesional injection of this fraction, designated MY-1, without attachment to oil or a single intralesional injection of MY-1 emulsified in mineral oil caused the IMC carcinoma of CDF1 mice and line 10 tumor of strain 2 guinea pigs to regress and/or prevented metastasis very effectively. MY-1 after digestion with RNase, which contained 97.0% single-stranded DNA with a guanine-cytosine content of 69.8%, was more effective than undigested MY-1 against IMC and line 10 tumor, while MY-1 digested with DNase, which contained 97.0% RNA, had reduced activity, suggesting that the DNA from BCG possessed strong antitumor activity under certain conditions. Details of the extraction procedures and physicochemical characterization of MY-1 were also described.