• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.135-139
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• 2003

During the screening for inhibitors of melanin biosynthesis from plant extract, Angelica polymorpha MAXIM which showed a high level of inhibition was selected. The inhibiting substances were purified form methanol extract of Angelica polymorpha MAXIM followed by silica gel column chromatography and HPLC. The inhibitors were identified as heraclenin, isosaxalin and heraclenol 3'-Me ether, by spectrescopic methods of ESI-MS, H-NMR, C-NMR, DEPT, HMQC and HMBC. These compounds did not have mushroom tyrosinase inhibitory activity, but showed a highly potent melanin biosynthesis inhibition zone in the plate culture of Streptomyces bikiniensis, a bacterium used as an indicator organism in this work. These compounds did not show any growth inhibition against S. bikiniensis at the same concentration of melanin biosynthesis test.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 2016

Angelica polymorpha Maxim root extract (APRE) is a popular herbal medicine used for treating stomachache, abdominal pain, stomach ulcers, and rheumatism; however the effect of APRE on cancer cells has not yet been explored. Here, we examined APRE cytotoxicity seen on target neuroblastoma cells (NB) using cell viability assays, DAPI visualization of fragmented DNA, and Western blotting analysis of candidate signaling pathways involved in proliferation and apoptosis. We demonstrated that APRE reduced cell viability in NB to a greater extent than in fibroblast cells. In addition, we found that APRE could inhibit the three classes of MAPK proteins and could also down-regulate the PI3K/AKT/GSK-$3{\beta}$ activity all being relevant for proliferation and survival. APRE could also up-regulate Bax expression and down-regulate Bcl-2 and Mcl-1. With APRE treatment, depolarization of mitochondria membrane potential and activation of caspase-3 was demonstrated in the SH-SY5Y cells. We could not found increased activity of death receptor and caspase-8 as markers of the extrinsic apoptosis pathway for the APRE treated cells. In presence of a caspase-3 siRNA and a pan-caspase inhibitor, APRE could not reduce the viability of NB cells to a significant degree. So we predicted that with APRE, the intrinsic pathway was solely responsible for inducing apoptosis as we also showed that the non-caspase autophagy pathway or ER stress-ROS mediated pathways were not involved. These findings demonstrate that an intrinsic mitochondria-mediated apoptosis pathway mediates the apoptotic effects of APRE on SH-SY5Y cells, and that APRE shows promise as a novel agent for neuroblastoma therapy.