Background : Recently, many studies to seek for medicinal herb compounds from natural products have been attempted capable of being free from harmful side effects and reducing the economic burden. This study was conducted to investigate whether Morus alba L.(MAL) water extracts has a biological safety, and an inhibitory potential against the mutagenicity induced by cigarette smoke condensates(CSC). Methods and Results : MAL was extracted with 70% ethanol and the yield of the extract was 35.1%. The 70% ethanol MAL extract was fractionated sequentially by diethylether, chloroform, dichloromethane, and water, respectively. Crude MAL 70% ethanol extract itself and its solvent fractions did not show any mutagenic effect up to 1 mg/plate toward Salmonella typhimurium TA 98 with or without the microsomal S-9 mixture of liver metabolic activations. On the other hand, the crude MAL extract showed an inhibitory activity against the mutagenicity of CSC with S-9 mixture. Diethyl ether layer among five solvent fractions showed the highest inhibitory activity at the same dose. The inhibitory activity of diethyl ether layer was also increased dose-dependently and the inhibitory rate was about 97.1% at the concentration of 1 mg/plate. Conclusion : In this study, we concluded that all of the crude MAL 70% ethanol extract and its solvent layers are potentially safe for mutagenicity and the diethyl ether layer among the crude MAL 70% ethanol extract has an inhibitory effect against the mutagenicity of CSC.

• Chang Gyun Park(Department of Industrial Crop Science and Technology, Chungbuk National University) | 박창균
• Hyun Ki Cho(Department of Industrial Crop Science and Technology, Chungbuk National University) | 조현기
• Seung Min Lee(Department of Industrial Crop Science and Technology, Chungbuk National University) | 이승민
• Heung Bin Lim(Department of Industrial Crop Science and Technology, Chungbuk National University) | 임흥빈 Corresponding author