Earthworms have been employed in traditional oriental medicine for the treatment of neurological disorders, as anticonvulsants, analgesics, and sedatives. In fact, earthworms are currently used as a medicinal agent in China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and North Korea. However, both the species and the genus of the earthworms registered in the pharmacopoeia of each country are different. Neural injury is induced by oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis. The role of various synthetic chemicals of earthworms as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents have been studied and earthworm extract and its components have been shown to protect nerve cells and restore nerve function in various preclinical neuronal damage models. We employed earthworm extracts to provide prevention and treatment strategies for many neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's disease, mild cognitive impairment, cerebral infarction, and peripheral nerve damage. In this study, we investigated the effects of earthworm extracts and its components to explore their prophylactic and therapeutic effects in various neuropathic models. We used earthworm resources to provide prevention and treatment strategies for many neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's disease, mild cognitive impairment, cerebral infarction, and peripheral nerve damage. We summarized the protective effects of both earthworms and their extracts on neuropathies. The current study identified some earthworm components to be used in treatment and prevention strategies for nerve disorders and could be helpful for the development of new therapies for intractable diseases.

The leaf beetle, Chrysolina aurichalcea (Coleoptera: Chysomelidae), is a pest damaging plants of Compositae. In order to understand the genetic diversity and geographic variation of the species we sequenced a portion of mitochondrial COI gene (658 bp) and complete nuclear internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) collected from seven Korean localities. A total of 18 haplotypes (BARCA01 ~ BARCA18), with the maximum sequence divergence of 3.04% (20 bp) were obtained from COI gene sequence, whereas 17 sequence types (ITS2CA01 ~ ITS2CA17), with the maximum sequence divergence of 2.013% (9 bp) were obtained from ITS2, indicating substantially larger sequence divergence in mitochondrial gene sequence. Phylogenetically, the mitochondrial DNA has shown several haplotypes formed independent groups with substantially high node support (≥ 90%), whereas no such grouping was evidenced for ITS2, indicating different behaviors of the two molecules. Such difference may reflect a diverse dynamics of the species such as biogeographic history, mating behaviors, and also possibly different mode of inheritance of the two molecules, but requires further scrutinized examination of the dataset. In terms of population genetic perspective, overall no population subdivision was detected from both molecules, except for locality 7 (Eocheong islet) from mitochondrial DNA. As more scrutinized analysis is performed, further fruitful inference on the geographic contour of the species might be available.