• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 2021

This study aimed to investigate the melanogenesis inhibitory activity of epicatechin-3-O-gallate (ECG) isolated from Polygonum amphibium L. ECG was isolated from the ethanol extract of P. amphibium L, and its chemical structure was determined using spectroscopic methods such as LC-ESI-MS, 1D-NMR, and UV spectroscopy. ECG inhibited the melanogenesis of B16F10 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Particularly, it decreased the melanin content by 27.4% at 200 µM concentration, compared with the control, in B16F10 cells, without causing cytotoxicity. It is noteworthy that the expression of three key proteins, including tyrosinase, tyrosinase-related protein-1 (TRP-1), TRP-2, and microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF), involved in melanogenesis, is significantly inhibited by ECG. The ECG isolated in this study caused the inhibition of body pigmentation and tyrosinase activity in vivo in the zebrafish model. These results suggest that the ECG isolated from P. amphibium L. is an effective anti-melanogenesis agent.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.34-45
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• 2013

The Polygonum amphibium complex (Poygonaceae) is a highly polymorphic taxon that can grow in aquatic environments as well as in moist terrestrial habitats. Aquatic and terrestrial plants of the P. amphibium complex vary significantly in morphology and exhibit very complicated patterns of morphological variation, resulting in the description of numerous infra-specific taxa. Principal components analysis of 107 individuals of the P. amphibium complex from Asia and North America using 11 morphological characters showed that the aquatic plants can be discerned from the terrestrial plants by leaf size, shape, and petiole length. In contrast, both aquatic and terrestrial plants collected from the same population or locality shared identical sequences in the matK, psbA-trnH IGS, rbcL-accD IGS and trnL-trnF regions of the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA), suggesting that aquatic and terrestrial forms of the P. amphibium complex are not genetically diverged; morphological differences between the two forms are probably due to the differences in environmental conditions of the habitats. In addition, results from the morphological analysis and the maximum parsimony analysis of the cpDNA data set revealed that the plants from Asia including Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia and Russia Far East are diverged from those in North America and Europe, suggesting that the Asian populations should be recognized as a distinct variety, P. amphibium var. amurense Korsh.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.195-200
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the melanogenesis inhibiting activity of the ethanol extract from Polygonum amphibium L. Firstly, the n-hexane (Hx), chloroform ($CHCl_3$), ethyl acetate (EA), n-butanol (BuOH), and water (Water) fractions were isolated from the P. amphibium L. ethanol extract. The efficacy of melanogenesis was found to significantly decrease via the EA and BuOH fractions when compared to the control in B16F10 cells. EA particularly showed the lowest melanin content in B16F10 cells when compared to all the other extracts. Concentration-dependent inhibition of melanin synthesis was also observed in the EA fraction at concentrations below $50{\mu}g/ml$, which did not exhibit cytotoxicity in B16F10 cells. Notably, the expression of three key proteins (tyrosinase, tyrosinase-related protein-1 (TRP-1), and TRP-2), which are involved in melanogenesis, were significantly decreased via the EA fraction. EA also inhibited body pigmentation in vivo in a zebrafish model. Overall, we demonstrated melanogenesis suppression using the EA fraction from P. amphibium L., which could be a potential candidate for an antimelanogenesis agent.