This study was conducted to explore the immune activity, anticancer activity and nitrile scavenging activities of methanol extracts from the various organs of four Korean resource plants. The immune responses from both human T and B cell line was significantly enhanced in the cell growth compared to control while the cell growth was influenced at a certain period of culture. The results revealed that the cell growth of both human T and B cell was altered in a time dependent manner. Among tested several resource plants, the flower extract of E. japonicum demonstrated a pronounced cytotoxicity against HCT-116 cell with an IC50 value 132.08 ㎍ ㎖-1. The flower extract from Corylopsis coreana had a promising scavenging activity against pH 1.2 compared to other species. Taken together, the studied resource plants have influenced significantly in response to immunity and also have the potential cytotoxicity and nitric scavenging activities. However, the species E. japonicum exhibited the pronounced activities from several resource plants. The result from this investigation suggests that the extracts of studied resource plant could be an addition to basic medicine for some diseases.

This study was conducted to evaluate the cytotoxicity and α-amylase, α-glucosidase, pancreatic lipase inhibition in vitro by different solvent fractions from the roots of Codonopsis lanceolata. The values of IC50 against Calu-6 cell showed a high effect in n-hexane fraction (10.13 μg/mL) whereas DW fraction exhibited the weakest inhibition on cell viability, having an IC50 value of over 1,000 μg/mL. The values of IC50 against HCT-116 cell showed the highest activity in n-BuOH fraction (102.01 μg/mL), followed by n-hexane fraction (145.85 μg/mL), methylene chloride fraction (332.02 μg/mL), ethyl acetate fraction (462.93 μg/mL) and DW fracion (>1,000 μg/mL). α-Amylase inhibitory activity in methylene chloride fraction and ethyl acetate fraction was found to have a higher inhibitory effect with 24.5% and 25.6% than the other fractions. The highest α-glucosidase inhibitory activity was observed from the ethyl acetate fraction extract, while the extract of DW fraction showed the lowest level of inhibitory activity at given experiment concentration. The pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity of C. lanceolata was found to have a higher the effect in ethyl acetate fraction. Inhibition of lipase activity of the ethyl acetate fraction and n-hexane fraction showed a relatively high, while the extract of DW fraction showed the lowest level at given experiment concentration. These results suggested that the roots of C. lanceolata may assist in the potential biological activity on carbohydrate, lipid Inhibitory activity and anticancer activity.

This study was conducted to clarify the antimicrobial effect, antioxidant and tyrosinase inhibitory activities of the biological composition having the Phytolacca americana, and to enhance the natural materials utilization of foods and cosmetics. The antimicrobial activities of the different parts of P. americana were evaluated using the agar diffusion test. The antimicrobial activity of P. americana was relatively high in Malassezia furfur known as a skin fungi and Vibrio parahaemolyticus compared to Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis. However, the antimicrobial activity in Vibrio parahaemolyticus did not show at all parts of P. americana. Both the DPPH radical scavenging activity and ABTS radical scavenging activity have been increased with the higher concentration of methanol extract. In particular, leaf extract of P. americana exhibited the highest activity both ABTS radical scavenging activity and DPPH radical scavenging activity. The nitrite scavenging activity was decreased when the pH was changed from pH 1.2 to pH 6.0. The highest nitrite scavenging activity was exhibited from the methanol extract of fruit, followed by root, stem, and leaf at pH 1.2. However, the nitrite scavenging activity at pH of 6.0 was not almost detected. All plant parts of P. americana showed tyrosinase inhibitory activity. The highest activity was found in the stem, and followed by root, leaf, and fruit in order. These tyrosinase inhibitory activity was progressively increased in a concentration-dependent manner. In this experiment on the methanol extracts of different organ from P. americana, we confirmed that the extract of P. americana showed potent tyrosinase inhibitory activity. Taken together, we conjectured that the P. americana had the potent biological activities, therefore this plant having various functional components could be a good material for development into source of natural food additives and cosmetics