• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.225-231
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• 2006

The secondary metabolites from Taiwanese marine soft corals and sponges have attracted much attention because they possess considerable potential biological activities. To explore the origin of bioactivity, many cytotoxic natural products were isolated and characterized in the past few years. For examples, The lipophilic extracts from marine sponges Petrosia elastica and Ircinia formosana were found active against several human tumor cells. The investigation of the gorgonian Junceela has also resulted in the discovery of a series of new juncenolides. Bioassay-directed fractionation of Clavularia viridis yielded seven new prostanoids. These compounds have been tested and evaluated as potential antitumor agents. The soft corals of the genus Cespitularia produced novel secondary metabolites with diverse chemical structures and interesting biological activities. Four new norditerpenoids, designated cespitulactones and cespihypotins were isolated from Cespitularia hypotentaculata. Cespitulactones are novel structures having a bond cleavage between C-10 and C-11. In addition, three novel diterpenes were isolated from C. taeniata and designated cespitulactams A, B and C having a phenylethyl amino side chain.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.195-198
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• 2001

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) polymerase, which possesses the activities of terminal binding, DNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase and RNaseH, has been shown to accomplish viral DNA replication through a pregenomic intermediate. Because the HBV polymerase has not been purified, the expression of HBV polymerase was examined in an E. coli expression system that is under the regulation of arabinose operon. The expressed individual domain containing terminal binding protein, polymerase, or RNaseH turned out to be insoluble. The activities of those domains were not able to be recovered by denaturation and renaturation using urea or guanidine-HCI. The expressed reverse transcriptase containing the polymerase and RNaseH domains became extensively degraded, whereas the proteolysis was reduced in a Ion- mutant. These results indicate that Lon protease proteolyzes the HBV reverse transcriptase expressed in E. coli.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.116-120
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• 2000

Aspirin has been widely used as analgesic and anti-inflammatory drug. Recently, it was elucidated that aspirin have anti-coaggregatory effect in low dose. This study was carried out to investigate the synthesis of aspirin derivatives from aspirin and aromatic compound of antioxidant and its biological activities. Synthesis of aspirin derivatives was prepared by esterification in the presence of 1, 1-carbonyldiimidazole. Biological activities was examined using effect of anti-coagulant on bleeding time, effect of antioxidant and effect of anti-platelet aggregation. As a result, SJ-101 showed strong antioxidative activity and anti-coagulant activity among four compounds. Anti-platelet aggregation of SJ-101 was examined by collagen, ADP, PAF method. SJ-101 exhibited more stronger activity to aspirin at collagen aggregation reaction. These finding demonstrates that SJ-101 is usefull as care drug of aging and old-disease because of its has antioxidant activity, anti-coagulant activity and anti-platelet activity.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.131-136
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• 2008

Sesamol, one of constituents isolated from sesame seed (Sesamum indicum L.) has been known to have natural antioxidant property. Nicotinic acid and clofibric acid have been used for treatment of hyperlipidemia. Sesamol derivatives prepared by conjugation with nicotinic acid (SJ-301) and clofibric acid (SJ-302) were expected to have various biological activity caused by synergistic effect of sesamol. Thus, this study were carried out to investigate the synthesis of sesamol derivatives from seasamol and antihyperlipidemia drugs and their biological activities. As a result, SJ-301 showed a stronger antihyperlipidemia activity in vivo and inhibitory effect on $TNF-{\alpha}$ release in vitro compared to the original agents such as sesamol, nicotinic acid and clofibric acid.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.256-261
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• 1996

Comparative biological activities of 70fr methanol extracts from the main roots and rhizomes of both red and white ginsengs were investigated using several in vitro experimental models. The main root of red ginseng and the rhizome of white ginseng strongly inhibited lipld peroxidation of hepatic microsomes induced by the non-enzymatic $Fe^{+}$ / Ascorbate system. The main root and rhizome of red ginseng markedly inhibited the release of G07, GPT and LDH by $CCl_4$-induced cytotoxicity in primary cultured rat hepatocytes as compared with those of white ginseng. And also, the main root of red ginseng showed a slight differentiating activity on HL-60 cancer cell line. The results suggest that the rhizome of ginseng have potential as a source of medicinal crude drug with possible pharmacolobica1 applications .

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2003.10b
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• pp.99.1-99.1
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• 2003

Cinnamaldehyde is the main component of cinnamon bark oil and show several biological activities such as anti-tumor, anti-fungal, anti-mutagenic and anti-inflammatory effects. A couple of studies have investigated how the natural compound exerts its anti-inflammatory effect. In despite of numerous investigations, the biological mechanism of effects belong to cinnamaldehyde remain unclear. We isolated 2-hydroxycinnamaldehyde(HCA) from the bark of Cinnamomun cassia Blume and reported a various of biological activities of HCA. (omitted)

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.153-158
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• 2021

Cordyceps militaris (CM) is one of the most important medicinal mushrooms known to possess various biological activities. Cordycepin (CP) is a bioactive compound present in the fruiting bodies of CM and is known to have anti-tumor, anti-metastatic immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory activities. In this study, we aim to analyze CP quantitatively under various CM extraction conditions. CP was measured using high-performance liquid chromatography, quantified using a reversed phase column using a gradient elution system of water and acetonitrile, and detected with a UV absorbance wavelength of 260 nm. The CP content of CM was the highest in 100% ethanol extract of the fruiting bodies and 60% ethanol extract of the mycelium. This study provides an efficient analysis method to determine the optimal extraction conditions for CP that can be used as a basis for developing functional foods and pharmaceutical products derived from CM.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.107-111
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• 1998

Two kinds of humoral factors were observed in 2 orders, 7 families, 10 genera, and 15 different species of Korean ascidians. They are the naturally occuring hemagglutinins and/or hemolysins against human erythrocytes A, B, and 0. All but two species showed aggregative activity, although there were considerable variations in titer. The weak agglutinating and lytic activities were increased in the presence of $Ca^{++}$. Much higher activities of agglutination and/or lysis were shown in the hemolymph than extracts from tissues, and a higher response was shown in adults than in juveniles. No distinct differences from collected locations were observed. The hemolymph of Ciona intestinalis showed a strong hemolytic (cytotoxic) and weak agglutinins capacities. In addition, hemolymph of Styela plicata and Styela clava clava also showed hemoagglutining and hemolytic activities. Botryllus tuberatus had hemagglutining and weak lytic activities. Other species showed only hemagglutining activity. These agglutining activities are probably responsible for carbohydrate recognition in solitary or colonial ascidian. The lytic activity is probably responsible for antibacterial defense and nonfusion reactions between allogeneic colonial ascidians, especially the genus of Botryllus. The occurrences of humoral factors in ascidians were independent of their geographic distributions.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.289-294
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• 2014

Maesa japonica (Thunb.) is an evergreen shrub belonged to the Myrsinaceae family, which was discovered in 2006 in South Korea. And, its biological functions have not been well studied. In this study, we determined the antioxidant activities, ${\alpha}$-glucosidase inhibitory effects and antimicrobial activities of methanol extract and the solvent fractions of M. japonica leaves and twigs. The highest antioxidant activity obtained by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging assay and reducing power assay was found in the ethylacetate fraction of twigs methanol extract, which contained the highest level of total phenolic compounds compared to the other fractions. In addition, ethylacetate fraction of twigs extract exhibited higher inhibitory activities against ${\alpha}$-glucosidase ($IC_{50}=0.8{\mu}g/m{\ell}$) compared to the $IC_{50}$ of the buthanol fraction ($IC_{50}=16{\mu}g/m{\ell}$) of leaves extract. It showed antimicrobial activities against Bacillus atrophaeus and Bacillus subtilis subsp. Spizizenii. Although the data is too limited, the current study is the first report on biological functions of M. japonica.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.187-190
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• 2018

Two curcumin derivatives, demethoxycurcumin (DMC) and bisdemethoxycurcumin (BDMC), isolated from Curcuma longa were analyzed for their inhibitory activities against two isoforms of monoamine oxidase (MAO), which is involved in the catalysis of neurotransmitting monoamines. In the study, DMC and BDMC potently inhibited human MAO-B, with $IC_{50}$ values of 2.45 and $2.59{\mu}M$, respectively, and both compounds showed effective inhibitory activities against human MAO-A, with $IC_{50}$ values of 3.24 and $3.09{\mu}M$, respectively. The inhibitory activities of the two compounds were higher than those of curcumin. The removal of the methoxy or dimethoxy groups in curcumin might increase the inhibitory activities against human MAO-A and MAO-B. The inhibited activities were recovered to almost the values of the reversible references in the dialysis experiments with DMC and BDMC. DMC and BDMC showed competitive inhibition for MAO-A and MAO-B, respectively, with $K_i$ values of 0.91 and $0.80{\mu}M$, respectively. These results suggest that the two curcumin derivatives may be useful or lead compounds in the treatment of related disorders as potent reversible MAO inhibitors.