• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.281-287
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• 2021

In this study, we analyzed the cosmetic applicability of extract from snow tea, native to Lijiang, Yunnan-province, China. After confirming the species as N. grossedentata through DNA analysis of Lijiang snow tea, experiments were conducted using representative tea, green tea, and a representative control group for each efficacy analysis. Both teas were extracted using 70% (v/v) ethanol aqueous solution. The polyphenol content in the Lijiang snow tea extract (gallic acid equivalent, 23.9 ± 3.2 mg/mL) was higher than that in green tea extract (16.4 ± 2.3 mg/mL). In contrast, the antioxidant (Radical scavenging, IC₅₀ 104 ㎍/mL), tyrosinase enzyme inhibitory (whitening agent, IC₅₀ 40.7 ㎍/mL), and Escherichia coli growth inhibitory (preservative) activities (IC₅₀ 2.85 mg/mL) were analyzed based on the solid content in the extract, and it was confirmed that the activities of Lijiang snow tea extract were superior to those of green tea extract (radical scavenging, IC₅₀ 234 ㎍/mL. It also showed similar efficacy to previously used active substances such as antioxidants (vitamin C, IC₅₀ 108 ㎍/mL), whitening agents (vitamin C, IC₅₀ 80㎍/mL), and preservatives (methylparaben, IC₅₀ 4.35 mg/mL). However, green tea was found to be better in collagenase inhibition activity (anti-wrinkle). Through this study, the cosmetic application potential of Lijiang snow tea is high.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.578-584
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• 2021

In this study, we investigated the potential of 70% ethanol extracts from wild edible plants (Pueraria lobata sprout, Rosa multiflora sprout, Artemisia princeps leaf, Diospyros kaki leaf, Morus alba leaf, Robinia pseudoacacia flower, Inula britannica var. japonica flower), as natural antioxidants. The antioxidant contents and activities of extracts were examined using various methods. The measurements of total polyphenol content revealed that Rosa multiflora sprout extract had the highest value and total flavonoid content showed that Diospyros kaki leaf extract had the highest value. Antioxidant activities were the highest in Rosa multiflora sprout for DPPH (IC₅₀ 232.52 ㎍/mL), ABTS⁺ (IC₅₀ 470.10 ㎍/mL), superoxide^- (IC₅₀ 431.88 ㎍/mL), nitrite (IC₅₀ 363.38 ㎍/mL) scavenging activity, and reducing power (2.47 O.D.). These results suggest that the ethanolic extract of Rosa multiflora sprout is a potential source of natural antioxidants.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.153-157
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• 2015

In this study, we investigated the applicability of functional materials by examining a variety of physiological activities with the extract of Cleyera japonica leaf. Cleyera japonica extract showed a low cytotoxicity against murine melanoma B16F10 cells. In little or no cytotoxicity at concentrations, we showed that the treatment with Cleyera japonica extract resulted in a significant increase in the DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC₅₀, 22.90 ㎎/L), similar to ascorbic acid (IC₅₀, 18.65 ㎎/L) and anti-microbial activities against Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, and Candida albicans. In particular, anti-microbial activities against Gram-positive bacteria was high. These results suggest that Cleyera japonica extract could be used as a natural preservative. Additionally, Cleyera japonica extract showed the inhibition of tyrosinase activity (IC₅₀, 178.90 ㎎/L), similar to kojic acid (IC₅₀, 89.13 ㎎/L) and decreased melanin content (IC₅₀, 101.90 ㎎/L) higher than the control arbutin level (IC₅₀, 100.65 ㎎/L), especially. Therefore, these results indicate that Cleyera japonica extract may be an effective material for functional cosmetics such as skin whitening materials.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.250-259
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• 2015

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) have been implicated in diabetic complications. In this study, the inhibitory effect on AGEs formation of 156 Korean herbal medicines has been evaluated. Among them, 15 Korean herbal medicines were showed to have significant effect (IC₅₀: <10 μg/ml) compared to positive reference, aminoguandine (IC₅₀: 76.47±4.81 μg/ml). Especially, four herbal medicines, Alnus firma (leaves, IC₅₀: 3.25±0.10 μg/ml), Juncus decipiens (whole plants, IC₅₀: 4.30±0.44 μg/ml), Smilax china (stems, IC₅₀: 3.55±0.21 μg/ml), and Vicia amoena (Aerial parts, IC₅₀: 4.25±0.06 μg/ml) showed more potent inhibitory activity approximately 8-24 fold) than the positive control aminoguanidine.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.209-215
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• 2024

Ishige foliacea belongs to class Phaeophyceae and family Ishigeaceae. This study investigated the physiological activities of the Korean marine algae I. foliacea. Its solvent extracts were prepared with 70% ethanol, 80% methanol, and distilled water. The ethanol and methanol extracts had higher α-glucosidase (half-maximal inhibitory concentration, IC₅₀: 0.67-0.73 mg/mL), xanthine oxidase (IC₅₀: 0.25-0.28 mg/mL), and angiotensin-converting enzyme (IC₅₀: 25.29-38.28 ㎍/mL) inhibitory activities than those of the water extract. The ethanol and methanol extracts possessed high acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity (IC₅₀: 0.78c0.97 mg/mL). Conversely, the water extract exhibited the highest β-secretase inhibitory activity (IC₅₀: 0.48 mg/mL). These results indicate that I. foliacea may be useful as a functional substance in food and pharmaceuticals with anti-diabetic, anti-gout, anti-hypertension, and anti-dementia properties.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2016

BACKGROUND: This study was initiated to quantitatively evaluate the effects of five heavy metals on the growth and P removal efficiencies of Alcaligenes sp., known as the Phosphorus Accumulating Organisms (PAOs). It was cultivated in the batch system with five heavy metals, such as Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb and Ni, added in single and binary mixtures, respectively.METHODS AND RESULTS: IC₅₀ (half of inhibition concentration of bacterial growth) and EC₅₀ (half of effective concentration of phosphorus removal Efficiencies) were used to quantitatively evaluate the effects of heavy metals on the growth and phosphorus removal Efficiencies of Alcaligenes sp. In addition, Additive Index Value (A.I.V.) method was used to evaluate the interactive effects between Alcaligenes sp. and heavy metals. As a result, as the five heavy metals were singly added to Alcaligenes sp., the greatest inhibitory effects on the growth and P removal efficiencies of each bacteria was observed in the cadmium (Cd). In the binary mixture treatments of heavy metals, the treatments of lowest IC₅₀ and EC₅₀ were the Cd + Cu treatment. Based on the IC₅₀ and EC₅₀ of the binary mixtures of heavy metals treatments, most interactive effects between the heavy metals were found to be antagonistic.CONCLUSION: Based on the results obtained from this study, it appears that they could provide the basic information about the toxic effects of the respective treatments of single and binary mixtures of heavy metals on the growth and P removal efficiencies of Alcaligenes sp. through further study about the characterization of functional proteins involved in toxic effects of heavy metals.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.242-249
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• 2022

Objectives: The aim of this work is to evaluate the in vitro antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and antiobesity effects of Euphorbia resinifera extracts and investigate the phenolic constituents and the toxicity of these extracts. Methods: Phytochemical screening was performed to detect polyphenols and flavonoids. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by four methods (DPPH, ABTS, H₂O₂, and xanthine oxidase inhibition). The hypoglycemic effect was determined by the inhibition of α-amylase and α-glucosidase enzymes in vitro and via a starch tolerance study in normal rats. The antiobesity effect was estimated by in vitro inhibition of lipase. Results: Phytochemical screening revealed that the ethanolic extract was rich in polyphenols (99 ± 0.56 mg GEA/g extract) and tannins (55.22 ± 0.17 mg RE/g extract). Moreover, this extract showed higher antioxidant activity in different tests: the DPPH assay (IC₅₀ = 53.81 ± 1.83 ㎍/mL), ABTS assay (111.4 ± 2.64 mg TE/g extract), H₂O₂ (IC₅₀ = 98.15 ± 0.68 ㎍/mL), and xanthine oxidase (IC₅₀ = 10.26 ± 0.6 ㎍/mL). With respect to hypoglycemic effect, the aqueous and ethanolic extracts showed IC₅₀ values of 119.7 ± 2.15 ㎍/mL and 102 ± 3.63 ㎍/mL for α-amylase and 121.4 ± 1.88 and 56.6 ± 1.12 ㎍/mL for α-glucosidase, respectively, and the extracts lowered blood glucose levels in normal starch-loaded rats. Additionally, lipase inhibition was observed with aqueous (IC₅₀ = 25.3 ± 1.53 ㎍/mL) and ethanolic (IC₅₀ = 13.7 ± 3.03 ㎍/mL) extracts. Conclusion: These findings show the antioxidant, hypoglycemic, and hyperlipidemic effects of E. resinifera extracts, which should be investigated further to validate their medicinal uses and their pharmaceutical applications.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2023

To our knowledge, this is the first study aiming to optimize the extraction conditions of total phenolic compounds (TPC) and total flavonoids contents (TFC) from Argania spinosa leaves using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) with a Box-Behnken design (BBD). The optimal conditions obtained were 5% (w/v) solvent-to-solid ratio, 72.33% ethanol concentration, and 10h ours as an extraction time, which resulted in an extract with maximum TPC (131.63 mg GAE/g dw) and TFC (10.66 mg QE/g dw). Under the optimal extraction conditions, the antioxidant activity of the extracts of leaves of argan tree showed a moderate antiradical capacity of DPPH (IC₅₀ = 0,130 mg/mL) and ABTS (IC₅₀ = 0.198 mg/mL). However, the leaves of argan tree showed a very interesting reducing power of Iron (IC₅₀ = 0.448 mg/ml) which is similar to that of the ascorbic acid (IC₅₀ = 0.371 mg/mL).

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.10.1-10.7
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• 2021

Although many models have been proposed to accurately predict the response of drugs in cell lines recent years, understanding the genome related to drug response is also the key for completing oncology precision medicine. In this paper, based on the cancer cell line gene expression and the drug response data, we established a reliable and accurate drug response prediction model and found predictor genes for some drugs of interest. To this end, we first performed pre-selection of genes based on the Pearson correlation coefficient and then used ElasticNet regression model for drug response prediction and fine gene selection. To find more reliable set of predictor genes, we performed regression twice for each drug, one with IC₅₀ and the other with area under the curve (AUC) (or activity area). For the 12 drugs we tested, the predictive performance in terms of Pearson correlation coefficient exceeded 0.6 and the highest one was 17-AAG for which Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.811 for IC₅₀ and 0.81 for AUC. We identify common predictor genes for IC₅₀ and AUC, with which the performance was similar to those with genes separately found for IC₅₀ and AUC, but with much smaller number of predictor genes. By using only common predictor genes, the highest performance was AZD6244 (0.8016 for IC₅₀, 0.7945 for AUC) with 321 predictor genes.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.10-24
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• 2021

Objectives: Yongdamsagan-tang (YST) and Paljung-san (PJS) in traditional medicine and finasteride in modern medicine are used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). In recent, the use of combination herbal remedies with conventional drugs has been increasing. Therefore, we investigated the anti-inflammatory effects of these drugs to treat BPH and the influence of herbal formulas on finasteride metabolism. Methods: The inhibitory effects of the herbal formulas and finasteride on the production of inflammatory mediators and cytokines were determined in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated RAW 264.7 cells. Additionally, the influence of herbal formulas on activities of human drug metabolizing enzymes (DMEs) was assessed using human microsomal enzymes. Results: We observed that YST, PJS and finasteride inhibited the production of nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in RAW 264.7 cells. The half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of YST on PGE₂ production was calculated to be below 25 ㎍/mL. YST inhibited the activity of uridine diphosphate-glucuronosyltransterase (UGT) 1A4 with an IC₅₀ value of 49.35 ㎍/mL. The activities of cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1A2, CYP2B6, CYP2C19, CYP3A4, and UGT1A1 were inhibited by PJS (IC₅₀ < 100 ㎍/mL, each). Although PJS and YST inhibited the activities of CYP3A4 and UGT1A4, respectively, these formulas may not influence the metabolism of finasteride because the IC₅₀ values of herbal formulas on DMEs are too high to affect metabolism. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the combination of finasteride and YST or PJS might not influence their drug metabolism and that the drugs may have synergistic effects against BPH.