• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• 제31권1호
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• pp.45-50
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• 2000

The root of Pseudostellaria heterophylla Pax et Hoffm. (Caryophyllaceae) is a herbal medicine called Taejasam(太子蔘) and used as a good tonic in China that strengthens the functions of the lung and the stomach like Ginseng in Korea. It has been known to have the antitussive activity for tuberculosis, appetizing effect and antifatigue activity, and so on. Especially it has been known to generate body fluids for the severe thirst and the shortage of water in body after a febrile disease for a long time. Recently some components of cyclic peptides, pseudostellarins A,B,C,D,E,F,G, that inhibit the activity of tyrosinase, were separated from this root. In this report several biological activities including acute toxicity, analgesic activity, antifatigue activity, bile juice increasing activity, hepatoprotective activity and antiinflammatory activity were investigated. These results showed as such; $LD_{50}$ of methanol extracts was above 10,000 mg/kg. The analgesic effect was revealed in the writhing test using rats. The BuOH fractions showed a prominent antifatigue effect against immobilized stress, significant hepatoprotective activities against $CCl_4$ intoxication and inhibitory effect on carrageenin-induced edema in rat's paw.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• 제27권4호
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• pp.454-459
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• 2004

The present study investigated the effects of gossypin, 3,3',4',5,7,8-hexahydroxyflavone 8-glucoside, on the toxicity induced by oxidative stress or $\beta$-amyloid ($A_{\beta}$) in primary cultured rat cortical cells. The antioxidant properties of gossypin were also evaluated by cell-free assays. Gossypin was found to inhibit the oxidative neuronal damage induced by xanthinelxanthine oxidase or by a glutathione depleting agent, D,L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine. In addition, gossypin significantly attenuated the neurotoxicity induced by $A_{{\beta}(25-35)}$. Furthermore, gossypin dramatically inhibited lipid peroxidation initiated by $Fe^{2+}$ and ascorbic acid in rat brain homogenates. It also exhibited potent radical scavenging activity generated from 1 ,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl. These results indicate that gossypin exerts neuroprotective effects in the cultured cortical cells by inhibiting oxidative stress- and $A_{\beta}$-induced toxicity, and that the antioxidant properties of gossypin may contribute to its neuroprotective actions.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제13권1_2호
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• pp.79-86
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• 1997

Inhibitory effects of tannic acid on skin toxicity and heat shock protein induced by UVB were investigated. Tannic acid was administered either topically or orally for 3 days to hairless mice, which were previously irradiated with UVB. UVB was found to cause skin erythema . However, the skin erythema was decreased when tannic acid was administered either topically or orally. The heat shock proteins, Hsp-78 kDa and 70 kDa, were induced by UVB irradiation, but the induction was decreased by treatment of tannic acid in both topically and orally administered groups. The hsp induction was more prominent in orally administered groups than in topically administerd groups. However, the difference between two groups was not statistically significant. The route of administrations, topical and oral, does not affect the activity of tannic acid. In the skin tissue observation, tannic acid regenerated the epithelial cells with 7-9 cell layers which were injured by UVB. In conclusion, tannic acid has an ability to protect against UVB irradiation and regenerate the skin.

• ALGAE
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.157-166
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• 2005

Uptake kinetics of Cd and Zn by leaves and rhizome of the seagrass Zostera marina were examined in controlled laboratory radiotracer experiments. Subsequently, acute toxicity of Cd, Cu and TBT on photosynthetic quantum yield (ΔF/Fm’ of Z. marina were determined, and the differential sensitivities of rapid light curve (RLC) to those harmful substances were also compared. All measurements on photosynthetic activity were determined by chlorophyll a fluorescence method using pulse amplitude modulation (PAM). Metal uptake by Z. marina was saturated with increasing exposure time in leaves and rhizomes. Uptake of Zn by Z. marina was faster than that of Cd. Metal uptake rates in Z. marina decreased with the increase of dissolved metal concentrations and also with the increase of biomass. The adverse effect of TBT on effective quantum yield was stronger than other pollutants. Average acute toxicity on the RLC of the seagrass exposed to TBT and two heavy metals (Cd and Cu) was going to decrease as follows: TBT > Cd > Cu. Our preliminary results in this study suggested that Z. marina potentially can be used as a biomonitor of harmful substances contamination in coastal waters.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 한국응용약물학회 1994년도 춘계학술대회 and 제3회 신약개발 연구발표회
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• pp.129-130
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• 1994

The science of toxicology is the understanding of the mechanisms by which exogenous agents produce deleterious effects in biological systems. The actions of chemicals such as drugs are ultimately exerted at the cellular and gene levels. Over the past decade. several in vitro alternative methods such as cultured cells for assessing the toxicity of various xenobiotics have been proposed to reduce the use of animals. In this workshop three advanced methods will be presented. These methods are novel important models for toxicologic studies. Dr. Tabuchis group has establishcd two immortalized gastric surface mucosa cell lines from the pminary cultore of gastric fundic mucosal cells of adult transgenic mice harboring a temperature sensitive simian virus 40 large T-anugen gene. As the immortalized cell lines of various tissues possess unique characteristics to maintain their normal functions for several months, these cell lines are extremely useful for not only toxicity testing but also pharmacological screening in new drug development. Professor Funatsu have studied the formation of spherical multicelluar aggregates of adult rat hepatocytes(spheroid) having tissue like structure. The sphcroid shown thre is a prototype module of an artificial liver support system. Thus, the urea synthesis activity of the artificial liver was maintained at least to days in 100％ rat blood plasma. Dr. Takezawa and his coworkers have developed a novel culture system of multicellular spheroids considered 〃organoids〃 by utilizing a thermo-responsive polymer as a substratum of anchorage dependent cells. His final goal is to reconstitute the organoids of various normal organs, e.g., liver, skin etc. and also abnormal deseased organs such as tumor.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.95-101
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• 1999

The scavenging effects of two hyaroxycinnamic acids such as caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid on paraquat induced pulmonary toxicity were investigated. The results are summerized as follows: 1. In the 5-lipoxygenase assay, caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid inhibited the enzyme activities whose inhibition concentration (IC$\_$50/) were 4.1 and 9.6 ${\mu}$M respectively. 2. To evaluate the antiinflammatory effects on mediator related to the mechanism of inflammation, ADP-induced platelet aggregation assay and histamine degranulation assay were used. Caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid inhibited on ADP-induced platelet aggregation and histamine release at a concentration dependent manners. 3. Arachidonic acid-induced ear edema were inhibited by administration of caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid. 4. Cytologicad analysis of branchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) which was the useful tool for detection of an inflammatory response in the lungs of animals intoxicated with chemicals were used. Alveolar macrophages and neutrophils in BALF, as well as the protein content and the LDH activity in BALF supernatant increased by intoxication of paraquat, but decreased by administration of caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid. Therefore, two hydroxyeinnamic acids tested were the useful candidates for scavenger and antiinflammatory agents on paraquat induced pulmonary toxicity.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제15권6호
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• pp.313-318
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• 1999

Cloning of the 5'untranslated region (5' UTR) and Nterminus of the glycoprotein precursor (G2G1) open reading frame of tomato spotted wilt virus has been problematic, possibly because of the toxicity of a signal peptide at the beginning of th G2G1 protein precursor. The toxicity of the signal peptide to bacterial growth and the reason for the expression of the peptide gene in Escherichia coli were investigated by cloning the 5' UTR and the signal peptide sequence separately. Cells transformed with the plasmid containing both the first 30 amino acids of the glycoprotein and the 5' UTR showed a severe growth inhibition whereas transformants harboring either the plasmid with the signal sequence or the 5'UTR alone did not show any ingibition. An E. coli promoter-like sequence was found in the 5'UTR and tis promoter acivity was confirmed with a promoter-less GUS gene cloned downstream of the 5'UTR. In the cloning of the Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) glycoprotein G2G1 open reading frame all the recovered plasmids contained stop codons in the signal sequence region. However, clones containing no stop codon were recovered when the signal sequence and the 5'UTR were cloned separately.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• 제35권1호
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• pp.85-90
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• 1996

Bacillus thuringiensis NT0423 produces quite a typical bipyramidal crystals of a common major band of ca. 130 kDa, and has dual specificity against Lepidoptera and Diptera. To enforce the Diptera-toxicity of B. thuringiensis NT0423, cryND gene was transformed 30 B. thuringiensis NT0423. The transfonnant B. thuringiensis PT1227 was obtained from introduction of pCGl0 into B. thuringiensis NT0423 by electroporation. The result showed that cryND and resident crystal protein genes in transformant were stably expressed with its own shape. Furthermore, the toxicity of B. thuringiensis PT1227 against Diptera was highly enforced, suggesting that the enforced toxicity of B. thuringiensis PT1227 was due to synergistic effect of both introduced and resident crystal proteins in transformant.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• 제19권1호
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• pp.27-34
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• 1990

This study was undertatken to investigate the effects of dietary vitamin E on the toxicity of cadmium(Cd) in rats. The two variables were the supplmentary vitamin E(400lU/kg) and the protein amount(10.5% in the low protein diet and 18.0% in the normal protein diet) In cadmium treated rats net weight gain and food intake were decreased but improved by supplementation with vitamin E in the normal protein, hematocrit values reduced by Cd were significantly increased by the addition of vitamin E to normal protein diet in Cd intoxicated rats, The supplementation with vitamin E diminished the effect of Cd on aspartate aminotransf-rase and alanine aminotransferase activities in serum In Cd treated rats fed normal protein diet with vitamin E the contents of triglyceride were decreased and total-cholesterol contents were significantly reduced in serum and both of them in liver were markedly decreased. The activity of alcohol dehydrogenase in liver was decreased by Cd however supplementation with vitamin E reduced the effects of Cd on hepatic alcohol dehydrogenase. the results of this experiment indicated that there was some interaction between vitamin E and protein levels and supplementation with vitamin E had an effect more than protein levels oncd toxicity.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.417-424
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• 2011

Ketoconazole (KET) is an antifungal drug with a broad spectrum of activity that also induces reproductive toxicity in humans and animals. KET inhibits C17-20 lyase which blocks the conversion of 17 ${\alpha}$-hydroxyprogesterone to androstenedione. The effect of Cuscutae semen(CS) extract against KET-induced testicular damage was evaluated in male rats. CS extract was administered orally (100 and 200 mg/kg) for 26 days. Three weeks after CS extract administration, KET was CS-administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 100 mg/kg once a day for 5 days. KET-induced reproductive toxicity was associated with clear reductions of the weights of testes and epididymides, sperm indices and serum testosterone levels. In addition, marked oxidative damage to testicular lipids and alterations of natural antioxidant enzymes were reported in association with KET toxicity. Most of the KET-induced effects were greatly decreased with the concomitant application of CS extract. This study suggests a protective role of Cuscutae semen extract that could be attributed to its antioxidant properties.