Antidiabetic Activities of Korean Red Pine (Pinus densiflora) Inner Bark Extracts

This study was carried out to investigate the potential of Korean red pine (Pinus densiflora) inner bark extracts as an antidiabetic agent. The ethyl acetate soluble fraction of the bark extracts was chromatographed on a Sephadex LH-20 column to yield five compounds, which structures were elucidated by NMR spectroscopy. The isolated compounds were (+)-catehin, (-)-epicatechin, taxifolin, taxifolin-3'-O-${\beta}$-D-(+)-glucose and $\tilde{n}$-courmaric acid. The antidiabetic activity of the different fractions, including the crude extracts and isolated compounds, was evaluated by ${\beta}$-cells insulin secretion and glucose uptake in skeletal muscle cells. The insulin secretion was 128% for taxifolin at $25{\mu}g/mL$. However, the other samples had no effect on this test. For the glucose uptake activity assay, $1{\mu}M$ insulin and 2 mM metformin were used as controls. Both the crude extract and taxifolin showed relatively low activity values, but the other samples yielded glucose uptake values over 260%. ${\rho}$-courmaric acid showed the highest uptake (270%). The results confirmed that Korean red pine extracts may be used as a hypoglycemic agent.