In this study, to develop balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum) leaves, which are not used as tea, a method of making green tea was referred to, and several physiological activities were analyzed using the balloon flower leaf tea with different times of roasting and rubbing. The highest total polyphenol and tannin contents were 33.02 mg GAE/g and 5.03 mg/g at two times of roasting and one time of rubbing, respectively. In the case of the total flavonoids, the RO3 + RU2, subjected to three times of roasting and two times of rubbing, showed the highest value, whereas there was no significant difference between the control and the other samples. Except for the green tea as a control, the RO2 + RU1 samples reported the highest antioxidant activity whereas it decreased with increasing number of times of roasting and rubbing. The color, lightness, and yellowness tended to decrease slightly as the number of increasing roasting and rubbing among the samples with no significant difference. All of these things together, to develop tea using the balloon flower leaves would be suitable with two times of roasting and one time of rubbing.

The balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum) has been used as food material and traditional medicine in Asia. Using 1,603 valid patents from 6 countries, we analyzed the patent trend based on year, countries, applicants, and technology. The technologies are categorized into 6 groups which include material, additives, manufacture, cultivation, breeding and seed. The technology competitiveness of countries were analyzed with quantitative factors such as cites per patent, patent impact index, patent family size and technology strength. In comparison with other countries in the patent index, South Korea shows an increasing trend in patent numbers and total leverage ability, although the individual technology is lower than Japan and USA. Our study provides information on technical trend to support the performance of new projects on balloon flower.

In South Korea, the total root production volume of Platycodon grandiflorum was 5,255ton in 1991 but it rapidly decreased to about 50% (2,697 ton) in 2002. From 2006, however, it has beengradually increased and reached to 6,759 ton in 2011. Meantime, the imported root of Platycodon grandi-florum for the pharmaceutical purpose was 429 ton in 2001 but it has been dramatically decreased to 36ton in 2011. Instead, the imported volume of dried or fresh one for food was 11,652 ton in 2008 andremained at similar level up to now. Although the volume was very little (less than 23 ton), Platycodongrandiflorum's root cultivated in South Korea has also been exported to China, Japan and several coun-tries. Gyeongnam province in South Korea produced 1,100 ton of Platycodon grandiflorum's root in 2010and Geochang gun produced the largest volume (743 ton). Recently, the cultivation area is continuallyincreased in Hapcheon and Sancheong-Gun. We predict that the total production volume of Platycodongrandiflorum's root in South Korea will be continually increased in future due to consumer's continuousdemands and a rising unit price.

Background : Invitro antioxidant activity, polyphenol and flavonoid aglycone contents in black and green tea products of balloon flower leaves were investigated to provide valuable information for the further development and utilization of resources of Platycodon grandiflorum. Methods and Results : Flavonoid aglycone contents were investigated using HPLC (SHIMADZU, Japan) with a hypersil ODS column (125 mm × 4 mm, 5-μm particle, HP). DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activities were measured by method of Lee & Lee (2004) with slight modification. Antioxidant activity, polyphenol and flavonoid contents in green tea were significantly higher than these in black tea. PC analysis indicated that first principal components explained 79.9% of the total variability for five traits investigated. PC2 explained 19.7% of the variation. Conclusion : It can be concluded from these results that these characteristics can reveal the active compound variation of black and green tea products of balloon flower leaves. These results provide scientific evidence for the utilization of balloon flower leaves.

도라지는 세계적으로 1속1종만 알려져 있는 식물로 관상용으로 도 가치가 있는 대표적인 약용 및 식용식물이다. 경상남도에서 제 정된 토종농산물 보존·육성에 관한 조례에 도라지가 포함되는 등 국내에 자생하는 토종 도라지에 관한 관심이 증대되고 있으며 여기 에 최근 국내 도라지 최대 수출국이던 중국의 자국 내 도라지 수요 증가로 수출물량의 감소로 인해 국내의 재배면적 및 생산량이 증가 하고 있는 추세에 있다. 이러한 추세에 발 맞춰 장백도라지의 대량 증식을 위한 조직배양 및 순화 조건, 도라지 재배로 인한 토양의 화 학적 특성변화, 뿌리 썩음 방제, 수확 후 저장 및 가공과정에 관한 연 구결과가 보고되고 있다. 한편, 국내산 토종도라지는 지표물질로 알려진 platycodin D 가 중국산에 비해 현저히 적다는 것이 다수의 연구결과에 의해 입증되고 있다. 하지만 기존 발표된 연구결과를 종합 해 볼 때 도라지의 다양한 약리작용을 platycodin D 가 대표하 지는 않는다는 점이 뒷받침 되므로 국내산 도라지의 고유성분에 대 한 연구와 이를 증가시킬 수 있는 재배방법 및 가공방법에 대한 체 계적인 연구가 시급한 실정이다. 따라서 본 고 에서는 도라지의 기 원, 재배, 가공, 효능에 대해 분야별로 최근 보고된 연구결과를 종합 하여 다음과 같이 국내도라지 연구에 대한 방향을 제안하고자 한 다. 첫째, 외래종에 비해 토종 도라지는 사포닌이 platycodin D에 편중되지 않고 재배기간이 길어질수록, 측근이 발달할수록 극성이 큰 사포닌 생성이 되므로 이러한 사포닌에 대한 생체이용률을 높이 기 위해서는 발효 또는 가열처리에 대한 연구가 필요하다. 둘째, platycodin D가 항암연구에 집중되어 있다면 platycodin D 이외 의 국내산 도라지에 함유된 다양한 사포닌으로 콜레스테롤 감소효 과, 면역조절작용 및 기억력개선작용에 대한 연구가 필요하다. 셋 째, 도라지의 뿌리 이외에 지상부에 함유된 페놀성 화합물의 항산 화작용을 이용한 연구가 필요하다고 결론지을 수 있다.

Methyl jasmonate(MeJA) treatment promotes the plant secondary, especially triterpene saponin which is main compounds in Platycodon grandiflorum. We were performed 5,760 expressed sequence tags from MeJA treated hairy root. Total number of ESTs are 2,536 (811 contigs and 1,725 singletons) among them 2,299 are pass the annotation. The most abundant transcript were encoding fatty acid desaturase (FAD) and lots of secondary metabolite transcript were observed. Four MVA pathway genes (HMGS, HMGR, MK, MDD) and one MEP pathway gene (IDI) are identified. The unigene were classified into three major functional categories by standard GO (Gene Ontology) - cellular component, molecular function and biological process. In this study we were cloned four genes from ESTs : HMGS (1401bp ORF), MK (1167bp ORF), MDD (1254bp ORF), IDI (909bp ORF)