• CELLMED
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.15.1-15.14
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• 2014

Andrographis paniculata (Burm. F.) Wall. Ex Nees (Family: Anthaceae) is a traditionally known Ayurvedic medicinal plant. Several well-controlled clinical trials conducted during recent years have consistently reconfirmed that Andrographis paniculata extracts are effective in suppressing cardinal symptoms of diverse inflammatory and infectious diseases. Despite extensive efforts though, many questions concerning bioactive constituents of such extracts and their modes of actions still remain unanswered. Amongst diverse diterpene lactones isolated to date from such extracts, andrographolide is often considered to be the major, representative, or bioactive secondary metabolite of the plant. Therefore, it has attracted considerable attention of several drug discovery laboratories as a lead molecule potentially useful for identifying structurally and functionally novel drug. Critical analysis of available preclinical and clinical information on Andrographis paniculata extracts and pure andrographolide strongly suggest that they are pharmacologically polyvalent and that they possess adaptogenic properties. Aim of this communication is to summarize and critically analyze such data, and to point out some possibilities for more rationally exploiting their adaptogenic properties for discovering novel therapeutic leads, or for obtaining pharmacologically better standardized phyto-pharmaceuticals.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.514-520
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• 2011

This study describes conditions for the mass production of mutant hairy root lines by co-cultivation with A. rhizogenes harboring the activation tagging vector pHC7. Various sources of explants were subjected to genetic transformation with A. rhizogenes to determine optimum conditions and cultivar for the highest frequency of hairy root formation on explants. Hairy root formation also were investigated in transformed hairy roots grown in various culture media. Finally, a total of approximately 2,500 lines of hairy root mutants were produced in this study. A managing system for metabolomics in hairy root lines also were established. These hairy root lines will be useful to determine functions of genes relating biosynthesis pathway of secondary metabolites.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.597-603
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• 2020

Red ginseng marc (RGM) has been used on primary industries using fertilizer or forage, and it mostly has been dumped. To improve utilization of RGM, the biological activities of RGM were examined. RGM was extracted and fractionated using various solvents and their biological activities were compared. The hexane fraction from the methanol extract of RGM (RGMMH) showed strong anti-cancer activity (58.56 ± 6.04% at 100 ㎍/mL) and anti-inflammatory effect (65.72 ± 1.33% at 100 ㎍/mL). But, oil extract of RGM extracted with hexane (RGMH) showed low activities (anti-cancer: 16.42 ± 3.33%, at 100 ㎍/mL, anti-inflammatory activity: 29.46 ± 2.10%, at 100 ㎍/mL). Their metabolites were analyzed using HPLC. Panaxydol known as anti-cancer compound of RGM was one of major compounds in RGMMH. Meanwhile, panaxydol was detected in trace amount in red ginseng marc oil (RGMH). In addition, RGMMH and RGMH showed big differences in HPLC profiling. This research suggests optimal extraction method of RGM oil.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.570-578
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• 2020

Rhizopus rot is a serious postharvest disease of various crops caused by Rhizopus spp. and controlled mainly by synthetic fungicides. We detected the antifungal activity of a culture extract of Setosphaeria rostrata F3736 against Rhizopus oryzae. The active ingredient was identified as moriniafungin, a known sordarin derivative, which showed minimum inhibitory concentrations of 1-8 ㎍/ml against Colletotrichum spp. and 0.03-0.13 ㎍/ml against Rhizopus spp. in vitro. Moriniafungin showed protective control efficacies against Rhizopus rot on apple and peach fruits. Treatment with 25 ㎍/ml moriniafungin delimited the lesion diameter significantly by 100% on R. oryzae-inoculated apple fruits compared with the non-treated control. Treatment with 0.04 ㎍/ml of moriniafungin reduced the lesion diameter significantly by 56.45%, and treatment with higher concentrations of 0.2-25 ㎍/ml reduced the lesion diameter by 70-90% on Rhizopus stolonifer var. stolonifer-inoculated peach fruit. These results suggest moriniafungin has potential as a control agent of postharvest diseases caused by Rhizopus spp.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.1305-1310
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• 2021

Shikimate is a key high-demand metabolite for synthesizing valuable antiviral drugs, such as the anti-influenza drug, oseltamivir (Tamiflu). Microbial-based strategies for shikimate production have been developed to overcome the unstable and expensive supply of shikimate derived from traditional plant extraction processes. In this study, a microbial cell factory using Corynebacterium glutamicum was designed to overproduce shikimate in a fed-batch culture system. First, the shikimate kinase gene (aroK) responsible for converting shikimate to the next step was disrupted to facilitate the accumulation of shikimate. Several genes encoding the shikimate bypass route, such as dehydroshikimate dehydratase (QsuB), pyruvate kinase (Pyk1), and quinate/shikimate dehydrogenase (QsuD), were disrupted sequentially. An artificial operon containing several shikimate pathway genes, including aroE, aroB, aroF, and aroG were overexpressed to maximize the glucose uptake and intermediate flux. The rationally designed shikimate-overproducing C. glutamicum strain grown in an optimized medium produced approximately 37.3 g/l of shikimate in 7-L fed-batch fermentation. Overall, rational cell factory design and culture process optimization for the microbial-based production of shikimate will play a key role in complementing traditional plant-derived shikimate production processes.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.04a
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• pp.69-69
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• 2019

Pepper (Capsicum spp.) is one of the main quality features of this crop because of its sense of pungency, which is due to the presence of capsaicinoids. This compound is synthesized as a secondary metabolite and found only in the placental tissue of spicy fruit (Suzuki et al., 1980). Stewart et al. (2005) concluded that Pun1 encodes for the acyltransferase AT3 and they demonstrated its involvement in capsaicinoids metabolism. It was analyzed that the capsaicinoids content and PUN1 genotype in pepper genetic resources which were selected with excellent phenotype in field evaluation. The number of pepper genetic resources analyzed was 135, and species were C. annuum, C. baccatum, C. chinense, C. frutescens. The content of capsaicinoid ranged from 0 mg/100g to 828 mg/100g. The content of 0 mg/100g was the sweet pepper type, the highest content is IT 158530, the capsaicinoid content of which was 828 mg/100g and species was C. annuum. PUN1 gene analysis showed 117 pungent, 5 hetero, and 13 non-pungent. PUN1 analysis showed that 5 out of 13 non-pungent accessions were detected with low levels of capsaicinoid.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.108.1-108
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• 2003

Soil metagenome is untapped total microbial genome including that of the majority of unculturable bacteria present in soil. We constructed soil metagenomic library in Escherichia coli using DNA directly extracted from two different soils, pine tree rhizosphere soil and forest topsoil. Metagenomic libraries constructed from pine tree rhizosphere soil and forest topsoil consisted of approximately 33,700 clones and 112,000 clones with average insert DNA size of 35-kb, respectively. Subsequently, we screened the libraries to select clones with antimicrobial activities against Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Agrobacterium tumefaciens using double agar layer method. So far, we have a clone active against S. cerevisiae and a clone active against A. tumefaciens from the forest topsoil library. In vitro mutagenesis and DNA sequence analysis of the antifungal clone revealed the genes involved in the biosynthesis of antimicrobial secondary metabolite. Metagenomic libraries constructed in this study would be subject to search for diverse genetic resources related with useful microbial products.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2022.09a
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• pp.20-20
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• 2022

Herein, we demonstrate that butein (1) can prevent swelling in a murine lymphedema model by suppressing tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) production. Butein derivatives were synthesized and evaluated to identify compounds with in vitro anti-inflammatory activity. Among them, 20 µM of compounds 7j, 7m, and 14a showed 50% suppression of TNF-α production in mouse peritoneal macrophages after lipopolysaccharide stimulation. Compound 14a, exhibited the strongest potency with an in vitro IC₅₀ of 14.6 µM and suppressed limb volume by 70% in a murine lymphedema model. The prodrug strategy enabled a six-fold increase in kinetic solubility of compound 1 and five-fold higher levels of active metabolite in the blood for compound 14a via oral administration in the pharmacokinetics study. We suggest that the compound 14a could be developed as a potential therapeutic agent targeting anti-inflammatory activity to alleviate lymphedema progression.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.910-919
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• 2012

The role of inorganic nitrogen assimilation in the production of amino acids, organic acids and soluble sugars is one of the most important biochemical processes in plants, and, in order to achieve normally, nitrate uptake and assimilation is essential. For this reason, the characterization of nitrate assimilation and metabolite composition from leaves, roots and xylem sap of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) was investigated under different nitrate levels in media. Tomato plants were grown hydroponically in liquid culture under five different nitrate regimes: deficient (0.25 and 0.75 mM $NO_3{^-}$), normal (2.5 mM $NO_3{^-}$) and excessive (5.0 and 10.0 mM $NO_3{^-}$). All samples, leaves, roots and xylem sap, were collected after 7 and 14 days after treatment. The levels of amino acids, soluble sugars and organic acids were significantly decreased by N-deficiency whereas, interestingly, they remained higher in xylem sap as compared with N-normal and -surplus. The N-excessive condition did not exert any significant changes in metabolites composition, and thus their levels were similar with N-normal. The gene expression and enzyme activity of nitrate reductase (NR), nitrite reductase (NIR) and glutamine synthetase (GS) were greatly influenced by nitrate. The data presented here suggest that metabolites, as a signal messenger, existed in xylem sap seem to play a crucial role to acquire nitrate, and, in addition, an increase in ${\alpha}$-ketoglutarate pathway-derived amino acids under N-deficiency may help to better understand plant C/N metabolism.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.1130-1142
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• 2023

Objective: Cow urine possesses several bioactive properties but the responsible components behind these bioactivities are still far from identified. In our study, we tried to identify the possible components behind the antimicrobial activity of cow urine by exploring the peptidome and metabolome. Methods: We extracted peptides from the urine of Sahiwal cows belonging to three different physiological states viz heifer, lactation, and pregnant, each group consisting of 10 different animals. The peptides were extracted using the solid phase extraction technique followed by further extraction using ethyl acetate. The antimicrobial activity of the aqueous extract was evaluated against different pathogenic strains like Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Streptococcus agalactiae. The safety of urinary aqueous extract was evaluated by hemolysis and cytotoxicity assay on the BuMEC cell line. The urinary peptides were further fractionated using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to identify the fraction(s) containing the antimicrobial activity. The HPLC fractions and ethyl acetate extract were analyzed using nLC-MS/MS for the identification of the peptides and metabolites. Results: A total of three fractions were identified with antimicrobial activity, and nLC-MS/MS analysis of fractions resulted in the identification of 511 sequences. While 46 compounds were identified in the metabolite profiling of organic extract. The urinary aqueous extract showed significant activity against E. coli as compared to S. aureus and S. agalactiae and was relatively safe against mammalian cells. Conclusion: The antimicrobial activity of cow urine is a consequence of the feeding habit. The metabolites of plant origin with several bioactivities are eliminated through urine and are responsible for their antimicrobial nature. Secondly, the plethora of peptides generated from the activity of endogenous proteases on protein shed from different parts of tissues also find their way to urine. Some of these sequences possess antimicrobial activity due to their amino acid composition.