Allium hookeri (Liliaceae) has been received the increasing attention as a bioactive resource due to its potent biological activities including anti-oxidant, anti-obesity, anti-microbial and lipid-regulating activities. The beneficial effects of A. hookeri are known contributed from the high content of organosulfur compounds in A. hookeri. Though a variety of articles demonstrated that A. hookeri contains 'saponin' as a bioactive constituent, the scientific evidence to prove it was limited. In the present study, we have attempted to identify saponin contained in A. hookeri through chromatographic isolation and NMR spectroscopic methods. As a result, a spirostane-type steroidal saponin (1) has been successfully isolated from the methanolic extract of A. hookeri roots. The structure of 1 was elucidated by extensive 1D and 2D spectroscopic methods including ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, ¹H-¹H COSY, HSQC, HMBC and NOESY; identified as (3β, 22R, 25S)-spirost-5-en-3yl O-6-deoxy-α-L-mannopyranosyl-(1→4)-O-6-deoxy-α-L-mannopyranosyl-(1→4)-O-[6-deoxy-α-L-mannopyranosyl-(1→2)]-β-D-gluco pyranoside. 1 showed the significant inhibitory activity on mushroom tyrosinase with IC₅₀ values of 248.7 μM while the inhibition on alpha-glucosidase was not significant.

Black ginger (Kaempferia parviflora) is a short-lived ginger plant with dark purple colored root and is known to be effective in treating diabetes and obesity. To find out the difference in the characteristics of the black ginger according to the variety of production, 1D proton NMR experiments were performed on 4 types of black gingers from different regions. The NMR spectra of all black ginger showed the characteristic peaks of the polymethoxy flavone compounds, and the chemical shifts and intensity of peaks showed slight differences depending of the type of black ginger implying the difference in molecular environment. These initial NMR experiments can be applied to the identification of the diversity of black ginger in physiological function according to the climate of regions using SNIF-NMR (Site-specific Natural Isotope Fractionation studied by NMR).

SNIF-NMR is one of the analytical methods used to discriminate impurities in food and natural products. To determine the origin of compounds, SNIF-NMR utilizes frequency of deuterium in site specific fractionated sample using nuclear magnetic resonance. Also, SNIF-NMR is currently used to evaluate the authenticity of various foods such as wine, vanillin and oil, and is known to provide more accurate information than other analytical methods. In this review, the basic principles and practical examples of SNIF-NMR is presented.

Many proteins are expressed as an insoluble form during the production using Escherichia coli (E. coli) system. Although various methods are applied to increase their amounts of soluble expression, refolding is the only feasible way to obtain a target protein in some cases. Moreover, protein NMR experiments require ¹³C/¹⁵N-labeled proteins that can only be obtained from E. coli systems in terms of cost and technical difficulty. The finding of appropriate refolding conditions for a target protein is a time-consuming process. In particular, it is very difficult to determine whether the refolded protein has a native structure, when a target protein has no enzymatic activity and its refolding yield is very low. Here, we showed that 1-dimensional ¹H-¹⁵N heteronuclear single quantum correlation (1D ¹H-¹⁵N HSQC) experiment can be efficiently used to screen an optimal condition for the refolding of a target protein by monitoring both the structure and concentration of the refolded protein.