Antimicrobial substances were isolated from the 50 % ethanol extract of paprika seeds by ODS open column chromatography and reverse phase HPLC. Ten compounds (1-10) which demonstrated antimicrobial activity against Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MIC= 1.3-2.6 mg/O were isolated. The structure of the major compound, 4 (MIC=2.6 mg/D, was determined to be Paprika is a sweet or mildly pungent substance that belongs to the genus Capsicum. The brilliant red powder obtained from dried paprika fruits is used as a fiavoring and ganrish. We previously found that a water extract from paprika seeds exhibited strong antimicrobial activity towards yeasts (Yajima et al., 1996).The antimicrobial substance partially purified from paprika seeds was very stable at high temperatures, over a wide pH range. Furthermore, several application studies showed that this antimicrobial substance was a good food preservative to prevent yeast growth (Yajima et al., 1997; Yajima et al., 1998a;1998b). However, this antimicrobial substance has not yet been completely purified, nor has its structure been elucidated. We report here the purification and structure of antimicrobial substances from paprika seeds.To extract the antimicrobial substances, paprika seeds (100 g)were ground into a powder using a mechanical coffee grinder. The powder was mixed with 50% ethanol (700 ml) and stirred at room temperature for 3 h. The stirred solution was filtered through a cotton cloth and then centrifuged (1 0.000Xg, 20 min).The filtrate was concentrated to l/2 of its original volume by rotary evaporation at 40'C and then applied to a reverse phase open column (16x300 mm, Cosmosil 140 C18-0PN, NacalaiTesque) that had been equilibrated with 5% ethanol solution.After washing the column with 300 ml of 5 % ethanol solution, antimicrobial substances were eluted using a stepwise gradient of 20% to 80% ethanol. The fraction that eluted at 60% ethanol showed the highest antimicrobial activity. The antimicrobial activity against Saccharomyces cerevisiae W-3 was measured using a 96-well microplate (Yajima et al., 1996). The pre-culture of S. HPLC equipped with a CarboPac PA-I column (4X250 mm, Dionex) and eluted with 15 mM sodium hydroxide. The eluted oligosaccharides were monitored using a pulsed amperometric detector (Hardy et al. , 1988). Compound 4 had a sugar chain consisting of D-glucose (Glc) and D-galactose (Gal) in a proportion of4.3 : I (Glc : Gal).