Abstract
Kimchi is composed of many ingredients such as Chinese cabbage, garlic, ginger, and red pepper and fermented fish extract. Some of them were known to have antioxidative activities due to their scavenging effect against reactive oxygen species(ROS). To study the health effects of kimchi on human skin cells, keratinocyte(A431, epidermoid carcinoma, human) and fibroblast(CCD-986SK, normal control, human) were cultured in oxidative stress condition provoked by paraquat, a superoxide anion generator, and hydrogen peroxide in the absence and presence of kimchi extract. The survival rate of keratinocyte was greatly reduced when exposed over 1mM concentration of hydrogen peroxide($H_{2}O_{2}$), but cytotoxicity of $H_{2}O_{2}$ was significantly reduced by kimchi extracts on cells. Especially 2 week-fermented kimchi decreased remarkably the cytotoxicity by $H_{2}O_{2}$ to keratinocyte cells. Over 1mM of paraquat concentration showed strong cell toxicity on keratinocyte, but the extracts from kimchi fermented for 1, 2 and 3 weeks showed protective effects in order. Fibroblast cells were significantly affected by $H_{2}O_{2}$ as were keratinocyte cells. Although almost all extacts of kimchi of different fermentation periods showed protective effect against cell killing at 0.5mM concentration of $H_{2}O_{2}$ week-fermented kimchi extract showed the strongest protective effect on fibroblast cells treated with 1mM $H_{2}O_{2}$ for either 1 day or 4 days. However most of kimchi extracts showed weak preventive effect or no effect on oxidative stress produced by paraquat. In conclusion, 2 week-fermented kimchi extract seems to have the best potential in preventing skin cells against oxidative damage which might be related to their scavenging effects of kimchi components produced during their fermentation process.