• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.33 no.8
• /
• pp.2756-2758
• /
• 2012

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.403-412
• /
• 2014

To develop an effective skin whitening agent for cosmetics, we isolated cucurbitacin B from Cucumis sativus L. which has been used as traditional skin lighting regimen by the bioactivity-guided fractionation, and investigated the inhibitory effects of cucurbitacin B on melanogenesis. At a non-cytotoxic concentration, cucurbitacin B reduced melanin contents of B16F1 melanoma cells in a dose-dependent manner. Cucurbitacin B did not directly inhibit mushroom tyrosinase activity, but it inhibited intracellular tyrosinase activity in a dose-dependent manner. Its inhibitory mechanism on melanin biosynthesis was further assessed, and we found that cucurbitacin B significantly decreased the protein level of tyrosinase, a major melanogenic enzymes and MITF, a master transcriptional factor of melanogenesis. In addition, cucurbitacin B increased the expression of WW domain-containing oxidoreductase (WWOX) which is known to function as tumor repressor and inhibits $Wnt/{\beta}$-catenin pathway. Collectively, these results suggest that cucuritacin B from C. sativus could be used as an active ingredient for skin whitening.