• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.225-231
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• 2006

The secondary metabolites from Taiwanese marine soft corals and sponges have attracted much attention because they possess considerable potential biological activities. To explore the origin of bioactivity, many cytotoxic natural products were isolated and characterized in the past few years. For examples, The lipophilic extracts from marine sponges Petrosia elastica and Ircinia formosana were found active against several human tumor cells. The investigation of the gorgonian Junceela has also resulted in the discovery of a series of new juncenolides. Bioassay-directed fractionation of Clavularia viridis yielded seven new prostanoids. These compounds have been tested and evaluated as potential antitumor agents. The soft corals of the genus Cespitularia produced novel secondary metabolites with diverse chemical structures and interesting biological activities. Four new norditerpenoids, designated cespitulactones and cespihypotins were isolated from Cespitularia hypotentaculata. Cespitulactones are novel structures having a bond cleavage between C-10 and C-11. In addition, three novel diterpenes were isolated from C. taeniata and designated cespitulactams A, B and C having a phenylethyl amino side chain.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2007

This aims to review natural products transformed by mimic intestinal metabolisms with microorganisms and hydrolytic enzymes, which exhibit enforced biological activity, higher extraction yield and identification of active components. In the process, transformation to the smaller active compounds with enzymes and microbes mimics the pharmacological action of natural products by intestinal bacteria. In order to establish conditions for the fermentation and enzyme reaction, it is required to choose several natural products for biotransformation and investigate the optimal conditions for the fermentation or the enzyme reaction such as composition, temperature, pH, inoculum, and cultivation time. It is expected an increase of the internal absorption of the active materials without regard to the intestinal microbes or its ability through biosynthesis of the active materials by the microbes and enzymes. And this techniques can be applied to biotransformation of natural products such as sesaminol, resveratrol, 1-deoxy nojirimycin, naringenin, quercetin, and baicalin and to the metabolism study using the animal model.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.252.2-253
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• 2001

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.255-265
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• 2011

Marine ecosystems are often characterized by a high biological diversity, and it corresponds to a high chemical diversity. Up to present, more than 20,000 new bioactive substances have been isolated from marine organisms, where considerable numbers of these naturally occurring derivatives are developed as potential candidates for pharmaceutical application. In this process, screening of natural products from marine organisms that could potentially inhibit the expression of metalloproteinases has gained a huge popularity. Cancer is considered as one of the deadliest diseases in the medical field. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) can degrade extracellular matrix (ECM) components and play important roles in a variety of biological and pathological processes. Matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors (MMPIs) have been identified as potential therapeutic candidates for metastasis, arthritis, chronic inflammation and wrinkle formation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.64-64
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• 1995

Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein (CETP) mediates the transfer of cholesterol ester and triglyceride between high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and other low-density lipoproteins, therefore, it might influence HDL levels. The levels of HDL is closely related to the atherogenic diseases in human and there were several reports that the trasgenic mice expressing CETP had much worse atherosclerosis than non-expressing control one. Therefore, selective inhibitors of CETP have the potential to be used as antiatherosclerotic agents. Continued screening for potent inhibitors of CETP led to the isolation of Suberitenone B from marine sponge. Suberitenone B, sesterterpenoids of a new skeletal class have been isolated from the sponge Suberites sp. collected from King George Island the Antartic. The structure of the metabolite has been determined by NMR experiments and chemical methods.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.10
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• pp.3121-3124
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• 2013

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2021

The diet plays a fundamental role in the formation of the gut microbiota, determining the interrelationship between the gut microbiota and the host. The current study investigated the effect of Chlorella vulgaris on the gut microbiota by using simulated in vitro digestion and colonic fermentation. Bioaccessibility was measured after in vitro digestion, and SCFAs and microbial profiling were analyzed after colonic fermentation. The bioaccessibility of C. vulgaris was 0.24 g/g. The three major SCFAs (acetate, propionate, and butyrate) increased significantly when compared to the control group. In microbial profiling analysis, microorganisms such as Faecalibacterium, Dialister, Megasphaera, Dorea, Odoribacter, Roseburia, Bifidobacterium, Butyricmonas, and Veillonella were high in C. vulgaris group. Among them, Faecalibacterium, Dialister, Megasphaera, Roseburia, and Veillonella were thought to be closely associated with the increased level of SCFAs. Finally, it can be expected to help improve gut microbiota and health through ingestion of C. vulgaris. However, further studies are vital to confirm the changes in the gut microbiota in in vivo, when C. vulgaris is ingested.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

Bone health is maintained by balance between bone resorption and bone formation, and bone homeostasis requires balanced interactions between osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Most of drugs and functional foods for bone health have been developed as bone resorption inhibitors, which maintain bone mass by inhibiting the function of osteoclasts. The recent studies have shown beneficial effects of marine natural products on bone health. Therefore, this review is aimed to study effects of marine-derived natural substances on osteoarthritis inhibition via attenuation of MMPs and osteoblastic differentiation via activation of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteoclacin (OC), bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2) as an important factor for bone formation, and mineralization. The present review can provide new insights in the osteoblastic differentiation of marine natural products and possibility for their application in bone health supplement.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.633-636
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• 2013

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.651-660
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• 2006

Natural products are a rich source of biologically active small molecules and a fertile area for lead discovery of new drugs [10, 52]. For instance, 5% of the 1,031 new chemical entities approved as drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were natural products between 1981 and 2002, and another 23% were natural product-derived molecules [53]. These molecules have evolved through millions of years of natural selection to interact with biomolecules in the cells or organisms and offer unrivaled chemical and structural diversity [14, 37]. Nonetheless, a large percentage of nature remains unexplored, in particular, in the marine and microbial environments. Therefore, natural products are still major valuable sources of innovative therapeutic agents for human diseases. However, even when a natural product is found to exhibit biological activity, the cellular target and mode of action of the compound are mostly mysterious. This is also true of many natural products that are currently under clinical trials or have already been approved as clinical drugs [11]. The lack of information on a definitive cellular target for a biologically active natural product prevents the rational design and development of more potent therapeutics. Therefore, there is a great need for new techniques to expedite the rapid identification and validation of cellular targets for biologically active natural products. Chemical genomics is a new integrated research engine toward functional studies of genome and drug discovery [40, 69]. The identification and validation of cellular receptors of biologically active small molecules is one of the key goals of the discipline. This eventually facilitates subsequent rational drug design, and provides valuable information on the receptors in cellular processes. Indeed, several biologically crucial proteins have already been identified as targets for natural products using chemical genomics approach (Table 1). Herein, the representative case studies of chemical genomics using natural products derived from microbes, marine sources, and plants will be introduced.