• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.363-369
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• 2014

Synthetic cannabinoids (CBs) such as the JWH series have caused social problems concerning their abuse liability. Because the JWH series produces euphoric and hallucinogenic effects, they have been distributed illegally under street names such as "Spice" and "Smoke". Many countries including Korea have started to schedule some of the JWH series compounds as controlled substances, but there are a number of JWH series chemicals that remain uncontrolled by law. In this study, three synthetic CBs with different binding affinities to the $CB_1$ receptor (JWH-073, 081, and 210) and ${\Delta}^9$-tetrahydrocannabinol (${\Delta}^9$-THC) were evaluated for their potential for psychological dependence. The conditioned place preference test (unbiased method) and self-administration test (fixed ratio of 1) using rodents were conducted. $K_i$ values of the three synthetic cannabinoids were calculated as supplementary data using a receptor binding assay and overexpressed $CB_1$ protein membranes to compare dependence potential with $CB_1$ receptor binding affinity. All mice administered JWH-073, 081, or 210 showed significantly increased time spent at unpreferred space in a dose-dependence manner in the conditioned place preference test. In contrast, all tested substances except ${\Delta}^9$-THC showed aversion phenomenon at high doses in the conditioned place preference test. The order of affinity to the $CB_1$ receptor in the receptor binding assay was JWH-210 > JWH-081 >> JWH-073, which was in agreement with the results from the conditioned place preference test. However, no change in self-administration was observed. These findings suggest the possibility to predict dependence potential of synthetic CBs through a receptor binding assay at the screening level.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.372-378
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• 2013

In this study, the inhibitory effect on advanced glycation end products (AGEs) formation of 43 Korean herbal medicines has been evaluated. Among them, 16 Korean herbal medicines were showed to have significant effect ($IC_{50}$; <50 ${\mu}g/ml$) compared to positive reference, aminoguandine ($IC_{50}$: $76.47{\pm}4.81{\mu}g/ml$). Especially, five herbal medicines, Rubus coreanus (leaves, $IC_{50}$: $4.49{\pm}0.03{\mu}g/ml$), Rubus coreanus (twigs, $IC_{50}$: $3.80{\pm}0.34{\mu}g/ml$), Ampleopsis brevipedunculata (stems, $IC_{50}$: $7.43{\pm}0.09{\mu}g/ml$), Lindera erythrocarpa (leave, $IC_{50}$: $8.14{\pm}0.20{\mu}g/ml$), and Lindera erythrocarpa (stems, $IC_{50}$: $3.69{\pm}0.14{\mu}g/ml$) showed more potent inhibitory activity (approximately 9-20 fold) than the positive control aminoguanidine.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.125-130
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• 2013

Samchulgeonbi-tang (SC) is well-known traditional herbal medicine which is composed of fourteen medicine herbs. SC has been used for the treatment of the chronic gastritis, indigestion, gastric ulcers, gastroptosis and diarrhea disease. The variation in the amount of bioactive components of SC and its fermentation SC with ten Lactobacillus strains were investigated via high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). Simultaneous qualitative and quantitative analysis of seven bioactive compounds; paeoniflorin, liquiritin, hesperidin, liquiritigenin, kaempferol, atractylenolide III, magnolol were achieved by comparing their retention times ($t_R$) and UV spectra with those of the standard compounds. In the results, the amount of paeoniflorin and hesperidin were 7.967 mg/g, 7.251 mg/g that were the main compounds in SC. The amounts of liquiritigenin was increased by all ten Lactobacillus strains, except strain 128. Especially, the liquiritigenin amount was highest in SC fermented with strain 145 (0.201 mg/g), which was increased by 158.39% compared to SC (0.081 mg/g). In the fermented SC using strains 344, almost components were increased than non-fermented SC, except paeoniflorin and kaempferol. Thus, these results considered that the strains 145 and 344 are most excellent fermentation strains among the 10 species of fermentation strains.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.1107-1113
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• 2010

Because conventional methods for detecting emetic-toxin-producing B. cereus are laborious and costly, various PCR assays, which are easy and cheap, have recently been reported. Therefore, this study estimated and compared the ability of various PCR assays to detect emetic-toxin-producing B. cereus strains isolated in Korea. The PCR assays were performed on 160 B. cereus strains, including 40 emetic-toxin-producing strains. Although the species-specific PCR assays were all shown to be highly specific, the sensitivities varied greatly. The accuracies of the primers were 97.5% (CER), 95.6% (EM1), 96.3% (RE234), 89.4% (CES), and 83.1% (Ces3R/CESR2). Moreover, the CER primer had a higher sensitivity (100%) than all the other primers tested, and a specificity of 96.7%. Thus, the CER primer was shown to be the most effective for screening the emetic-toxin-producing B. cereus strains tested in this study. However, the ability of these PCR assays to identify emetic-toxin-producing B. cereus should also be confirmed using other methods.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.338-344
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• 2012

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) have been postulated to play a central role in the development of diabetic complications. A variety of different agents that inhibit AGEs have been under investigation. In this study, 62 herbal medicines from China and Vietnam have been investigated with an in vitro evaluation system using AGEs formation inhibitory activity. Of these, 5 herbal medicines ($IC_{50}$ < $5{\mu}g/ml$) were found to have significant AGEs formation inhibitory activity. Particularly, herbal medicines Albizia odoratissima (twigs and leaves), Rhododendron spinuliferum (twigs and leaves), Dioscorea cirrhosa (stems and leaves), Illicium verum (stems and leaves) and Aglaia perviridis (stems and leaves), showed more potent inhibitory activity (approximately 16-26 fold) than the positive control aminoguanidine ($IC_{50}=76.47{\mu}g/ml$).

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.147-154
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• 1974

Some crude drugs in ancient literatures have been used as traditional therapeutic agent of leucorrhea mainly caused by Trichomonas vaginalis and Candida albicans. Sixty six kinds of crude drugs in ancient literatures and ten constituents were selected as sample drugs. Trichomycin standard was tested to compare with the above drugs. To determine the anti-fungal effect of these drugs on Candida albicans Yu 1200, a test organism, screening test was conducted. Antifungal activities of crude drug water extracts were observed by means of two test methods : firstly through the agar slant method and secondly the counting chamber method which was used for acknowledged drug agents upon the result of the agar slant method. And in order to improve the fungicidal effect, the organisms were stained with 0.02% methylene blue solution. The results of the above test indicated that Fritillariae Rhizoma has antifungal action in the concentration of 310mcg/ml, Coptidis Rhizoma in 620mcg/ml, Meliae Cortex, Scutellariae Radix both in 5,000mcg/ml. Baicalin, catechol among the pure isolated constituents inhibited in the range of 50mcg/ml. This score was based on 50% inhibition in comparison with amounts of control organisms. Rhei Rhizoma, Mori Radicis Cortex, Linderae Radix, and Amomi globosi Fructus showed the antifungal effect moderately in 5,000mcg/ml, and baicalein and pectolinarin in 50mcg/ml in the limit of between 35% and 50% antifungal activity. Staining with 0.02% methylene blue showed that any of the crude drug extracts was unable to stain the cells, but trichomycin in 0.86unit/ml able to stain 12% of the cells. This result means that crude drugs probably do not have fungicidal but fungistatic action.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.143-150
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• 2019

To evaluate the toxicity of ophthalmic drug, the Draize test and Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability (BCOP) test commonly used. In Draize test, experimental animals were under stress and pain due to long-term exposure of drug. In addition, regarding physiological functions, animal model is not perfectly reflected a human eye condition. Although some models such as $EpiOcular^{TM}$, HCE model, LabCyte Cornea-Model, and MCTT $HCE^{TM}$ were already presented advanced cornea ex-vivo model to replace animal test. In this sense, cornea tissue structure mimicked ex-vivo toxicity model was fabricated in this study. The corneal epithelial cells (CECs) and keratocytes (CKs) isolated from rabbit eyeball were seeded on non-patterned silk film (n-pSF) and patterned silk film (pSF) at $32,500cells/cm^2$ and $6,500cells/cm^2$. Sequentially, n-pSF and pSF were stacked to mimic a multi-layered stroma structure. The thickness of films was about $15.63{\mu}m$ and the distance of patterns was about $3{\mu}m$. H&E stain was performed to confirm the cell proliferation on silk film. F-actin of CKs was also stained with Phalloidin to observe the cytoskeletal alignment along with patterns of the pSF. In the results, CECs and CKs were shown the good cell attachment on the n-pSF and pSFs. Proliferated cells expressed the specific phenotype of cornea epithelium and stroma. In conclusion, we successfully established the ex-vivo cornea toxicity model to replace the eye irritation tests. In further study, we will set up the human ex-vivo cornea toxicity model and then will evaluate the drug screening efficacy.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.33-38
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• 2013

Objectives : The aim of this study was to examine anti-thrombotic effect of traditional herbal extracts in a rat model of ferric chloride ($FeCl_3$)-induced carotid arterial thrombosis. Methods : Thirty minutes prior to a 35% $FeCl_3$ application, Sprague Dawley(SD) rats were injected with the 10 types of traditional herbal extracts (100mg/kg, intraperitoneal injection), respectively. The effect of these herbal extracts was examined for time to occlusion(TTO) using the Laser doppler flow meter and measured for thrombus weight (TW) in $FeCl_3$-induced thrombosis model. Results : In the TTO, Salvia miltiorrhiza (Sm, $2.30{\pm}0.28$ min, p<0.001) and Santalum album (Sa, $2.19{\pm}0.19$ min, p<0.001) showed significantly delayed TTO more than twice compared with Saline-treated group. Cnidium officinale (Co), Psoralea corylifolia (Pc), Scutellatia baicalensis (Sba), Panax notoginseng (Pn), Angelica tenuissima (At), Scrophularia buergeriana (Sbu), Rhus verniciflua (Rv) and Picrasma quassioides (Pq), except for Rhus verniciflua (Rv) also meaningfully impeded TTO more than one fold. In addition, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Santalum album, Cnidium officinale, Psoralea corylifolia and Scutellatia baicalensis significantly reduced TW more than 10% compared with Saline-treated group. Especially, Salvia miltiorrhiza and Santalum album showed the most excellent anti-thrombotic effect among the 10 herbal extracts tested on the restoration of altered TTO and TW. Conclusions : These results suggest that Sm and Sa extracts have outstanding anti-thrombotic effect in $FeCl_3$-induced thrombosis model and is potentially useful as herbal medicines for the treatment and prevention of thrombosis.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.1011-1016
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• 2023

We have experienced a case in which herbal medicine was administered to treat drug-induced liver damage and would like to introduce it. A 49-year-old man exhibited a positive result in the interferon-gamma release assay. He had never suffered from tuberculosis in the past, and the route and time of infection could not be confirmed. He had no respiratory or systemic symptoms suggestive of active tuberculosis, and a chest X-ray examination showed no active lung lesions, so he was diagnosed with latent tuberculosis infection. He was confirmed to be within the normal range in the liver function test, renal function test, and complete blood cell count test, and started taking rifampin (600 mg qd). In the screening test performed on the 19th day of taking the drug, other test items were normal, but alanine aminotransferase (ALT) increased to 50 U/L (reference value: 4-40 U/L). In a test performed on the 29th day of taking the drug, ALT was clearly elevated to 102 U/L. Ursodeoxycholic acid and Injinho-tang were taken together with rifampin, and the patient's progress was observed. In a test performed 14 days later, ALT decreased to 26 U/L, within the normal range. It is presumed that Injinho-tang may have partially contributed to alleviating liver damage in this case.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.81-95
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• 2023

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide, ranking third after lung and breast cancer in terms of global prevalence. With an expected 1.93 million new cases and 935,000 deaths in 2020, it is more prevalent in males than in women. Evidence has shown that during the later stages of colon cancer, STAT1 promotes tumor progression by promoting cell survival and resistance to chemotherapy. Recent studies have shown that inhibiting STAT1 pathway leads to a reduction in tumor cell proliferation and growth, and can also promote apoptosis in colon cancer cells. One of the recent approaches in the field of drug discovery is drug repurposing. In drug repurposing approach we have virtually screened FDA database against STAT1 protein and their interactions have been studied through Molecular docking. Cross docking was performed with the top 10 compounds to be more specific with STAT1 comparing the affinity with STAT2, STAT3, STAT4, STAT5a, STAT5b and STAT6. The drugs that showed higher affinity were subjected to Conceptual - Density functional theory. Besides, the Molecular dynamic simulation was also carried out for the selected leads. We also validated in-vitro against colon cancer cell lines. The results showed mainly Acetyldigitoxin has shown better binding to the target. From this study, we can predict that the drug Acetyldigitoxin has shown noticeable inhibitory efficiency against STAT1, which in turn can also lead to the reduction of tumor cell growth in colon cancer.