The interest in and development of healthy foods and nutraceuticals have increased because of the trend for a health-oriented society. Cinnamon is used as a food ingredient as well as a herbal medicine because of its functional properties. In this study, flavoring compounds and antioxidative activities of cinnamon extracts were investigated with different extraction solvents and extraction methods. The contents of flavoring compounds such as coumarin, cinnamic acid, cinnamaldehyde, and cinnamyl alcohol were investigated. The contents of courmarin, cinnamic acid, and cinnamylaldehyde in 70% ethanol extract were higher than those in hot water and subcritical water extracts. The contents of courmarin, cinnamic acid, and cinnamaldehyde in subcritical water extract were higher than those in hot water extract, whereas the content of cinnamyl alcohol was lower. DPPH scavenging activity increased with increasing concentration of the extracts, and the 70% ethanol extract showed the highest antioxidant activity. The ascorbic acid content of the 70% ethanol extract was largest in the antioxidative activity measurement by FRAP analysis. The ascorbic acid contents of the hot water and subcritical water extracts were similar.

In this study, a medicinal herbal plant, Cinnamomum cassia, was extracted by three different methods using water, methanol, or ethanol. For anti-helicobacter activity screening, inhibitory zone tests as an in vitro assay were performed respectively with the extracting compounds. As the result of inhibitory zone test, Cinnamomum cassia extract exhibited strong anti-helicobacter activity. In addition, we performed a comparison of the antibacterial activities according to the extracting methods of Cinnamomum cassia against Helicobacter pylori. The 70% ethanol-extracted compound exhibited stronger anti-helicobacter activity than the compounds extracted with water or methanol. These results indicate that it can be used for treatment against H. pylori infection and protected against H. pylori-induced pathology using 70% ethanol-extracted Cinnamomum cassia.

In order to develop antimicrobial substances, many kinds of medicinal herbs were extracted with absolute ethanol and then antimicrobial activities against various microorganisms were investigated. Ethanol extract from cinnamon bark showed the strongest antimicrobial activity on the growth of almost all submitted microorganisms. Specially, molds such as Aspergillus sp. and Pencillium sp. were inhibited strongly. Therefore, the crude antimicrobial substance from the ethanol extract was fractionated with various solvents such as n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and n-butyl alcohol and then their antimicrobial activities were tested. Among the various solvent fractions from the ethanol extract, n-hexane fraction was the best in antimicrobial activity especially against molds. There were no significant changes in antimicrobial activity of the n-hexane fraction by heat treatment at 100℃ for 60 min or 121℃ for 15 min and by the change of pH 4.0-10.0. We could get the results that the n-hexane fraction of cinnamon bark extract showed not only antimutagenicity but also no mutagenicity by Ames test with Salmonella typhimurium TA 98 and TA 100.

Background : The young stem of Cinnamomum cassia (YSC) as traditional Chinese medicines has been reported to show a variety of pharmacological properties such as anti-allergy, insecticidal, antimicrobial, antiulcer, anti-inflammatory, immune-suppressive, and neuronal death prevention, tyrosinase inhibition and anticancer, antioxidant and free radical scavenging, as well as antidiabetic and aldose reductase inhibition activities. In this study, we elucidated apoptotic effect and potential molecular mechanism of hot water extracts from YSC (YSC-HW) against human colorectal cancer cells. Methods and Results : YSC-HW treatment increased ROS level and induced ROS-dependent DNA damage in human colorectal cancer cells. ROS generation mediated by YSC-HW induced DNA induced apoptosis and reduction of cell viability in human colorectal cancer cells. YSC-HW ROS-dependently induced NF-kB activation through p65 nuclear translocation via IkB-α degradation, which exerted the induction of apoptosis. In addition, YSC-HW activated ATF3 expression dependent on ROS, which resulted in apoptosis. Conclusion : Our results suggest that YSC-HW may induce apoptosis through ROS-activation of NF-kB and ATF3 in human colorectal cancer cells. From these findings, YSC-HW has potential to be a candidate for the development of chemoprevention or therapeutic agents for human colorectal cancer.

The essential oil obtained by steam distillation from medicinal plants of Cinnamomum cassia and Prunellae Herba. Analysis of essential oils were performed on GC/MS selective detector. Separations were performed fused silica capillary column. The carrier gas was ultra pure helium with a flow of 1 ㎖/min and the splitless injector temperature was set as 280 °C. The column temperature program was as follows: initial temperature of 70 °C for 4 min, and increased by 2 °C /min 70 to 100 °C (held 2 min), After that the temperature was varied from 100 to 200 °C at 5 °C/min (held 20 min), increase to 280 °C (held 5 min) at 10 °C /min, in a total run time of 73 min. Ten volatile flavor components were identified from C. cassia and ten volatile flavor components were identified from Prunellae Herba. Strong inhibition of growth of Vibrio parahaemolyticus was obtained with all doses of C. cassia tested. Moreover, antimicrobial activity of C. cassia occurred in a dose dependant manner.