• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2005

Research was undertaken to compare the pharmacological activity of Lithospermi radix (LR) reported as an oriental medicine for classical uses. LR contains naphthoquinone pigments : shikonin, acetylshikonin, isobutylshikonin, etc. LR is used for the treatment of excision wound, burn, eczema, blister, scarlatina and septicemia as antifebrile, antidotic and antiphlogistic. Gardeniae fructus (GF) has been used for the treatment to jaundice, hepatic disease, anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects, and it contains crocin, geniposide and its derivatives. The therapeutic effects of burn and excision wound healing from LR & GF hydrogel with $Nano-ATP^{\circledR}$ (GLN) were investigated. To evaluate the therapeutic value of various hydrogels, thermal burn model and excision wound mouse model were used. The burn and wound reduction rate and therapeutic period were measured to calculate the healing extent after 5 experiments. The 2nd degree burn was prepared on hairless mouse back skin and dressing with collagen. The burn and wound reduction rate of GLN hydrogel treated group decreased more rapidly than that of other gel group in animal model. Furthermore therapeutic periods of GLN hydrogel treated group was shorter than that of other gel group. In anti-inflammatory test, GLN hydrogel treated group decreased edema rapidly than that of other gel group. These results suggest that the GLN hydrogel treatment has an therapeutic effect on burn and excision wound healing.

• Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1995.06a
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• pp.40-56
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• 1995

During the past two decades, China has seen her great progress in plant biotechnology. Since the Chinese market of herb medicine is huge, while the plant resources are shrinking, particular emphasis has been placed in plant tissue and cell cultures of medicinal plants, this includes fast propagation, protoplast isolation and regeneration, cell suspension cultures and large scale fermentation. To optimize culture conditions for producing secondary compounds in vitro, various media, additives and elicitors have been tested. Successful examples of large scale culture for the secondary metabolite biosynthesis are quite limited : Lithospermum ery throrhizon and Arnebia euchroma for shikonin derivatives, Panax ginseng, P. notoginseng, P. quinquefolium for saponins, and a few other medicinal plants. Recent development of genetic transformation systems of plant cells offered a new approach to in vitro production of secondary compounds. Hairy root induction and cultures, by using Ri-plasmid, have been reported from a number of medicinal plant species, such as Artemisia annua that produces little artemisinin in normal cultured cells, and from Glycyrrhiza uralensis. In the coming five years, Chinese scientists will continue their work on large scale cell cultures of a few of selected plant species, including Taxus spp. and A. annua, for the production of secondary metabolites with medicinal interests, one or two groups of scientists will be engaged in molecular cloning of the key enzymes in plant secondary metabolism.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.19-23
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• 1992

Jindo Hongju is a traditional liquor in Jindo island of Korea. The characteristics of Hongju are its unique flavour by fermetation and red color of gromwell(Lithospermum erythrorhizon) root. However, the evaluation of red pigment is different from one manufactures to other manufactures and from place to place, also the standard method is not established. An attempt has made to compare the quality of gromwell root from different places and to standardize the extracting method. The results obtained from this study are summerized as follow, The chemical properties and composition of gromwell root from Jindo and other areas were compared. There were no difference among the samples in moisture content, content of naphtoquinone derivatives and absoption spectra. These results indicate that the pigments from Jindo and other region products seems to be the same quality. For efficient extraction of gromwell pigment, more than 40% ethanol as solvent and at least 10 hours extraction time was required. According to the visual test for Hongju pigment, the most preferable color was that it shows absorbance of 1.0 (contents of shikonin was 3.90 mg/45% EtOH 20 ml). From this visual test it can be proposed that the may be applied absorbance at 1.0 for the quality control of pigment.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.403-414
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• 2015

Lithospermum erythrorhizon has long been used as a traditional oriental medicine. In this study, the acute and 28-day subacute oral dose toxicity studies of hexane extracts of the roots of L. erythrorhizon (LEH) were performed in Sprague-Dawley rats. In the acute toxicity study, LEH was administered once orally to 5 male and 5 female rats at dose levels of 500, 1,000, and 2,000 mg/kg. Mortality, clinical signs, and body weight changes were monitored for 14 days. Salivation, soft stool, soiled perineal region, compound-colored stool, chromaturia and a decrease in body weight were observed in the extract-treated groups, and no deaths occurred during the study. Therefore, the approximate lethal dose (ALD) of LEH in male and female rats was higher than 2,000 mg/kg. In the subacute toxicity study, LEH was administered orally to male and female rats for 28 days at dose levels of 25, 100, and 400 mg/kg/day. There was no LEH-related toxic effect in the body weight, food consumption, ophthalmology, hematology, clinical chemistry and organ weights. Compound-colored (black) stool, chromaturia and increased protein, ketone bodies, bilirubin and occult blood in urine were observed in the male and female rats treated with the test substance. In addition, the necropsy revealed dark red discoloration of the kidneys, and the histopathological examination showed presence of red brown pigment or increased hyaline droplets in the renal tubules of the renal cortex. However, there were no test substance-related toxic effects in the hematology and clinical chemistry, and no morphological changes were observed in the histopathological examination of the kidneys. Therefore, it was determined that there was no significant toxicity because the changes observed were caused by the intrinsic color of the test substance. These results suggest that the no-observed-adverse-effect Level (NOAEL) of LEH is greater than 400 mg/kg/day in both sexes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Postharvest Science and Technology of Agricultural Products Conference
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• 1996.04a
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• pp.25-25
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• 1996

;Jindo Hongju is an unique red-colored traditional distilled wine of Korea. The unique attractive color of Jindo Hongju is due to the pigments of gromwell (Lithospermum erythrorhizon) root, derivatives of naphtoquinone such as shikonin and acetylshikonin. Which are extracted during the distillation process. The attractive color of the gromwell pigments is easily changed to dark red or to brown causing deterioration of the Quality of Jindo Hongju. Due to the discoloration of the pigments and to the limited supply of gromwell roots, some brewers manufacture spurious Jindo Hongju using artificial colorants. This study was performed to devise a simple method of detecting spurious Jindo Hongju products. The color of the gromwell pigments was greatly affected by pH change and the change could be demonstrated by the change of the absorption spectrum. At pH 4.0 the normal pH of Jindo Hongju, the absorption spectra of gromwell pigments and genuine Hongju products showed an absorption maximum of 520 nm. The absorption maximum was shifted to 570 nm and to 616 nm as the pH was raised to 7.0 and 11.0 respectively. This transition due to the pH change was also demonstrated on em chromaticity diagram. The characteristic transition due to pH change of gromwell pigment solution was not observed with an artificial colorant (red No.2) which was suspected to be used in the manufacture of imitation products. The absorption spectra of most of the Jindo Hongju collected from the market were similar to that of the gromwell pigments and showed the characteristic transition due to pH change with the addition of NaOH. However, with a few of the products, the absorption spectra was similar to that of the artificial colorant and the characteristic transition due to pH change was not observed, indicating these products might have been forged. The result of study suggests that the transition of the absorption spectrum and the change of the color due to pH change be used for the detection of imitation products. Farther more, since, at pH above 9.0, the color of the gromwell pigments and genuine Jindo Hongju could be visually differentiated from that of the artificial colorant and forged products, it might be possible that the forged products be easily detected by raising the pH to above 9.0 and visually comparing the color with that of the gromwell pigment at the same pH.me pH.