• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.114-122
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• 1993

0.5 mg of natural ginsenoside mixture and 0.8 $\mu$Ci of synthesized 14C-ginsenosides were administered orally to a rat and killed at one hour after the ginsenoside administration and the liver was fractionated into nuclear fraction, mitrochondria microsomes and cytosol fraction. Radioactivity distribu lion in subcellular fractions of the liver showed that 32o1c of total radioactivity absorbed in the liver was in cytosol fraction but a significant portion of the radioactivity was also found in mitochondria (26.6%) and microsomal fraction (18.l%). 5.8% of the total radioactivity was recovered from the nuclear fraction as well. This suggested that ginsenosides might be distributed into all subcellular fractions. Activities of mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase, lactate dehydrogenase and malate dehydrogenase of the liver of rat at two hours after the ginsenoside administraion were found appreciably stimulated, suggesting that the ginsenoside concentration in the liver might be around 10-5%, since optimum concentrations for most enzyme catalyzed reactions in vitro were known to be 10-6% 10-4%. A significant portion of the radioactivity recovered from subcellular fractions of the liver was found in protein fractions, suggesting that proteins might interact with ginsenosides. Examination of protein-ginsenoside interation by gel filtration, equilibrium dialysis and amonium sulfate precipitation technique suggesting that proteins and ginsenosides do not bound covalently but weakl\ulcorner combined. When purified ginsenoside Rbl and Rgl were incubated with rat liver cytosolic enzymes for 20 min, the above ginsenosides were hydrolyzed quickly, suggesting that ginsenosides might be rapidly hydrolyzed and metabolized in the liver. It was also observed in vitro that the ginsenosides such as Rbl and Rgl were easily hydrolyzed by rat liver cytosol preparation suggesting that absorbed ginsenosides might be quickly hydrolyzed and metabolized in the liver.