• 한국약용작물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.09a
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• pp.164-165
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• 2011

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.6-12
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• 2015

Medicinal plants resources are becoming important assets since their usages have been expanded to the development of functional foods for human health, more attractive cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries. However, their phylogenetic origins and names are different from each country and quite often they are mixed each other resulting in the confusion for consumers. In particular, when they are very similar based on their morphological characteristics and distributed as dried roots, it is extremely difficult to differentiate their origins even by specialists. Recently, "DNA barcodes" have been extensively applied to identify their origin of medicinal plant species. In this review, we tried to overview the current research achievements for the development of suitable "DNA barcodes" regarding to the differentiation of medicinal plant species. Furthermore, more advanced techniques including amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS)-PCR, multiplex single base extension (MSBE), high-resolution melting (HRM) curve analyses are also discussed for their practical applications in the authentification of particular medicinal plant species.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.697-703
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• 2022

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in immune enhancement is increasing. Although the immune-enhancing activity of plants of the genus Hibiscus has been reported, there is no study on the immune-enhancing activity of H. syriacus. Thus, in this study, we investigated the immune-enhancing activity of Hibiscus syriacus leaves (HSL) in mouse macrophages, RAW264.7 cells, and immunosuppressed mice. HSL increased the production of immunostimulatory factors such as nitric oxide (NO), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and activated the phagocytosis in RAW264.7 cells. The HSL-mediated production of immunostimulatory factors was dependent on toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), p38, and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in RAW264.7 cells. In the immunosuppressed mouse model, HSL increased the spleen index, the levels of the cytokines, and the numbers of lymphocytes, neutrophils, and monocytes. Taken together, HSL may be considered to have immune-enhancing activity and be expected to be used as a potential immune-enhancing agent.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.536-541
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• 2021

In this study, we investigated whether Hibiscus manihot flowers (HMF) exhibits immunostimulatory activity in RAW264.7 cells. HMF increased the production of immunostimulatory factors such as NO, iNOS, IL-1β and TNF-α in RAW264.7 cells. TLR2 and TLR4 blocked HMF-mediated production of immunostimulatory factors in RAW264.7 cells. In addition, the inhibition of MAPK signaling pathway reduced HMF-mediated production of immunostimulatory factors. From these results, HMF is thought to promote the production of immunostimulatory factors through activating TLR2/4/MAPK signaling in macrophages. It is believed that HMF can be developed as an agent related to immune enhancement in the future.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.278-284
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• 2015

In general, plant roots accumulate more heavy metals than the above ground organs such as leaf, stem, and fruit. This implies that root medicinal plants would be an issue with excessive heavy metal accumulation. Therefore, the current study was carried out to investigate the distribution of heavy metal (focused on Cd and Pb) concentrations in soils and medicinal plant roots grown in different region of Korea. Total 293 samples for each soil and plant were collected along the national wide. Soil pH, total and phytoavailable metal concentrations (1 M $NH_4NO_3$ extracted) in soils were determined and heavy metal concentrations in root of the medicinal plants were analyzed. Heavy metal concentrations of the soil samples studied were not exceeded standard limits legislated in 'Soil Environmental Conservation Act', except 2 samples for Cu. However, substantial amount of Cd was accumulated in medicinal plant roots with 29% samples exceeding the standard limit legislated in 'Pharmaceutical Affairs Act' while all plant samples were lower than the standard limit value for Pb. Also the current study demonstrated that cadmium concentrations in the roots were governed by the phytoavailable Cd in soils, which decreased as soil pH increased. From this result, application of heavy metal immobilization technique using a pH change-induced immobilizing agents can be suggested for safer root medicinal plant production.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.407-413
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• 2011

This study was analyzed and investigated to evaluate ecological distribution of medicinal plants in Miho Stream of Korea. Totality 463 taxa of vascular plants were appeared in lower part of Miho Stream. Medicinal plants were distributed 253 taxa, which were 54.6% of the total vascular plants appeared. Medicinal plants of official drug compendium(Korean pharmacopoeia) were 85 taxa. Medicinal plants were distributed most of the forest area, and followed field surrounding, stream surrounding and paddy surrounding respectively. The distribution of life form hemicryptophyte was the most frequent. Plant community of appearing area of medicinal plants was classified into Salix koreensis, Phragmites japonica, Echinochloa crusgalli, Artemisia selengensis, Miscanthus sacchariflorus, Setaria faberii, Panicum dichotomiflorum, Bidens frondosa, Humulus japonicus, Monochoria vaginalis var. plantaginea, Eleocharis kuroguwai, Erigeron acris, Pinus densiflora, Pinus rigida, Quercus acutissima, Quercus serrata, Robinia pseudoacacia and Castanea crenata community. Medicinal plants in plant communities that occur frequently were Humulus japonicus, Corylus heterophylla and Liriope spicata.

• 한국약용작물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.249-250
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• 2007

• 한국약용작물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.09a
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• pp.166-167
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• 2011

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.143-151
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• 1995

The development of medicinal plants for cut plants and landscape plants were conducted through the literiture survey. The results were as follows: We selected 38 species of medicinal plants including 7 medicinal woody plants for cut plant and landscape plants from 450 medicinal plants. There were 8 species of Compositae, 4 species Ranunculaceae, 3 species Rosaceae and Umbelliferae, 2 species Polygonaceae and Campanulaceae respectively. The anthesis of Cornus officinalis, Magnolia denudata, Forsythia koreana of medicinal woody plants flowering before leaf spreading come to early than the anthesis of other medicinal plants. There were 4 species(11%) over 10cm of the flower diameter, 6 species(16%) over 5cm below 10cm, 19 species(50%) over 1cm below 5cm and 9 species(24%) 1cm below. In terms of flower color, 11 species(29%) were white, 9 species(24%) yellow, 6 pecies(16%) red, 5 species(13%) violet and 3 species(8%) were blue aided violet. In terms of the flowering by month, 12 species(32%) on July, 9 species(24%) on May, 6 species(16%) on June and August respectively, and 3 species(8%) on March. The most medicinal plants were propagated by division and seeding easily, but woody medicinal plants of 7 species of this study were propagated by cutting and grafting easily. The percentage of usage of parts of medicinal plants including woody medicinal plants was that roots were 20 species(53%), flowers 6 species(16%), fruits and all part of medicinal plants were 4 species(11%), and seeds and stem including leaves 2 species(5%) respectively.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.235-242
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• 2017

Cudrania tricuspidata Bureau is a widely-used, medicinal, perennial and woody plant. Obtaining information about the genetic diversity of plant populations is highly important with regard toconservation and germplasm utilization. Although C. tricuspidata is an important medicinal plant species registered in South Korea, no molecular markers are currently available to distinguish Korean-specific ecotypes from other ecotypes from different countries. In this study, we developed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers derived from the chloroplast and nuclear genomic sequences, which serve to to identify distinct Korean-specific ecotypes of C. tricuspidata via amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS)-PCR and high resolution melting (HRM) curve analyses. We performed molecular authentication of twelve C. tricuspidata ecotypes from different regions using DNA sequences in the maturaseK (MatK) chloroplast intergenic region and nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions. The SNP markers developed in this study are useful for rapidly identifying specific C. tricuspidata ecotypes from different regions.