The root extracts of Paeonia lactiflora cv. ‘Red Charm’ has been studied by many groups, however, little attention has been paid to its flower petal. Paeonia is the genus in the Paeoniaceae family. ‘Red Charm’ Paeonia is a soft-stemmed herbaceous peony hybrid of P. officinalis and P. lactiflora. We previously showed the flower petal extract of Red Charm might have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, however, it was not clear which components might be involved in this activity. Bioinformatics analysis previously indicated these extracts have potential anti-oxidant materials. One of them is identified as paeoniflorin, which is major component in root extract of Red Charm. In this study, we compared paeoniflorin and oxypaeoniflorin using DPPH assays to measure its anti-oxidant activities. Oxypaeoniflorin showed higher levels of radical scavenging activity, similar to ascorbic acid control, whereas paeoniflorin did not. Furthermore, nitric oxide assay showed they have similar anti-inflammatory effects. Taken together, these results suggest oxypaeoniflorin may play a more important role in the anti-oxidant activity of the flower petal and root extracts of Red Charm, compared to paeoniflorin. Further studies may be able to provide a platform to develop potential dual effects therapeutics for oxidant-mediated and inflammation-mediated disease in the near future.

Abstract
Introduction
Materials and Methods
    Cell culture
    Red Charm Extracts
    Reagents
    DPPH radical scavenging assay
    Nitric Oxide Assay
    MAP Kinase (ERK) phosphorylation assay
    MTT cell proliferation assay
    Statistics
Results and Discussion
    Effects of paeoniflorin and oxypaeoniflorin on cell viabilityof RAW 264.7 macrophages
    Effects of oxypaeoniflorin and paeoniflorin on RadicalScavenging Activity in RAW264.7 macrophage cells
    Effect of paeoniflorin and oxypaeoniflorin on Nitric Oxideproduction
    Effect of oxypaeoniflorin and paeoniflorin on MAP Kinasephosphorylation
References

• Soo-Ah Kim(Department of Biotechnology, The University of Suwon)
• Eun-Seo Jang(Department of Biotechnology, The University of Suwon)
• A-Yeon Lee(Department of Biotechnology, The University of Suwon)
• Soo-Jung Lee(Department of Biotechnology, The University of Suwon)
• June-Hyun Kim(Department of Biotechnology, The University of Suwon) Corresponding author