Aralia cordata (A. cordata), which belongs to Araliaceae, is a perennial herb widely distributed in East Asia. We evaluated the anti-inflammatory effect of stems (AC-S), roots (AC-R) and leaves (AC-L) extracted with 100% methanol of A. cordata and elucidated the potential signaling pathway in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells. The AC-L showed a strong anti-inflammatory activity through inhibition of NO production. AC-L dose-dependently inhibited NO production by suppressing iNOS, COX-2 and IL-β expression in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells. AC-L inhibited the degradation and phosphorylation of IκB-α, which donated to the inhibition of p65 nuclear accumulation and NF-κB activation. Furthermore, AC-L suppressed the phosphorylation of ERK1/2 and p38. These results suggested that AC-L may utilize anti-inflammatory activity by blocking NF-κB and MAPK signaling pathway and indicated that the AC-L can be used as a natural anti-inflammatory drugs.

Background : Wild-simulated ginseng (WSG, Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer) in Korea which depends on an artificial forest growth method. Methods and Results : WSG samples were collected from 8 different regions in Korea in October, 2017, and these were analyzed by ultraperformance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF MS) using optimized analytical methods to compare the metabolite patterns to cultivated regions. Furthermore, their metabolite compositions differed according to individual plant samples. The metabolite profiling data were processed by multi-variate statistical analyses such as PCA and PLS-DA to determine the differences among geographical origins. To identify significant metabolites according to regional variances of WSG, more sophisticated multi-variate statistical analyses such as metabolite selection should be performed. Conclusion : This metabolomics approach can also be applied to evaluate the overall quality of WSG, as well as to discriminate the cultivars for the medicinal plant industry.