• Journal of Haehwa Medicine
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.145-151
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• 2011

Backgrounds: Multidisciplinary approaches including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy are currently being performed to target various cancers in Western Medicine. However, some cancers still remain difficult to battle, which has long attracted many scientists for the discovery of new agents to fight cancers. Ginseng is one of the herbs used in Oriental Medicine including Korea, China and Japan. We have further investigated ginseng for its anticancer effect. Objective: This is a comprehensive review summary of anticancer effect of ginseng and ginsenoids as a possible agent for future cancer treatment. Methods: Data were retrieved from two web sites; www.pubmed.com and www.riss.kr, and authorized texts concerning anticancer effects of ginseng. From collected data, information on anticancer effect of ginseng was thoroughly sorted, restructured, then assessed. Results: Panax Ginseng C.A. Meyer belongs to Araliaceae Panax family, a perennial prairie plant with its root known as Ginseng Radix. Ginseng induces anticancer effect through cell cycle arrest, acceleration of apoptosis, anti-angiogenesis, and suppression of metastasis. Anticancer effect of ginseng may be due to single compound or multi-compound actions. Many studies report involvement of immune mechanisms of cytokines, Natural Killer (NK) cells, macrophages and some antibodies in enhancing anticancer effect of ginseng. In near future, possibility of applying these mechanisms into clinical trials is convinced. There were some important findings on saponin in ginsenoids in reviewing for this article; First, eradication of metastatic tumors were influenced by macrophage activation. Second, suppression of malignant melanoma cell metastasis to lung were induced by macrophage and NK cell activation in spleen with red ginseng acidic polysaccharide (RGAP). Third, final metabolites of M1, M4 had exerted anticancer effect of ginseng. Conclusion: Unknown anticancer mechanisms of ginseng have been studied for many years up until now. Ginseng is comprised of multiple bio-chemical compounds that create complex pharmaceutical interactions. Therefore, for its proper usage and safe prescription, studies on different types of ginseng and patients' susceptibility to ginseng according to their constitution and stages of the disease should be further pursued. More efforts are needed to understand the anticancer mechanisms of ginseng as well.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 2005

This study was performed to experiment about useful biological activities of the parts of the extracts from Amorpha fruticosa LINNE. Experimental studies were progressed through the anticancer activities and immune activities such as cell cytotoxicity, inhibition activities of cell growth, cell growth of human B and T cell, productivity of cytokines and natural killer cell activities. The cell cytotoxicity using human Lung normal cell (HEL299) was showed cytotoxicity of below 22% by extracts of Amorpha fruticosa L. in 1.0 g/l concentration. The anticancer activities were increased in over 70% by roots extracts of Amorpha fruticosa L. in A549 and AGS cells. The immune cell growth using human immune B and T cells was increased against control by barks extracts of Amorpha fruticosa L. The secretion of cytokines $(IL-6,\;TNF-{\alpha})$ from human immune B and T cells was showed secretion of the amount of cytokines by roots extracts of Amorpha fruticosa L. Also NK cell growth was increased against control all of the extracts of Amorpha fruticosa L. From the results, the roots and barks extracts of Amorpha fruticosa L. were showed useful biological activities.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.599-606
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• 2005

The study was carried out to measure the antitumor effect of traditional doenjang (Korean soybean paste) added with Japanese apricot, garlic or ginger. Four kinds of traditional doenjang inhibited significantly the tumor growth in mice injected sarcoma-I80 cells. Especially, traditional doenjang added with ginger (Gi-TD) showed an inhibition of tumor cell activity of 97% by the administration of 1.0 mg/kg methanol extracts. Among Balb/c mouse administered doenjang extracts, the liver weight of mice fed Gi-TD was heavier than that of the group not administered doenjang. However, no difference was found between the control and doenjang administrated groups in weights of body, spleen, kidney and heart. The activity of natural killer (NK) cells was relatively high in mice administrated with the four kinds of doenjang. Particularly, mice administrated with the Gi-TD methanol extracts showed a strong activity of 82.9%. The activity of glutathione S-transferase (GST) in mice administrated with the 4 kinds of doenjang was higher than that of the group not administered with doenjang. In particular, the GST activity was the strongest in the group administrated with Gi-TD. The results suggest that Gi-TD has a strong growth inhibition activity against sarcoma-180 tumor cells.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.941-950
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• 2012

In order to develop new physiologically active polysaccharides from persimmon leaves, two different crude polysaccharides were prepared using hot water (PLW-0) and pectinase digestion (PLE-0) and their immuno-stimulating activities were estimated. PLW-0 and PLE-0 showed similar sugar compositions with 15 different sugars, including rarely observed sugars in general polysaccharides such as 2-O-methyl-fucose, 2-O-methyl-xylose, apiose, aceric acid, 3-deoxy-D-manno-2-octulosonic acid, and 3-deoxy-D-lyxo-2-heptulosaric acid, but the uronic acid content of PLE-0 was lower than that of PLW-0 caused by pectinase treatment. Both PLW-0 and PLE-0 showed potent anti-complementary activity in a dose-dependent manner which was similar to a known immuno-stimulating polysaccharide, PSK, from Coriolus versicolor. The activity of PLE-0 at a low concentration ($100{\mu}g/m{\ell}$) was higher than that of PLW-0. In an in vitro cytotoxicity analysis, PLW-0 and PLE-0 (up to $1,000{\mu}g/m{\ell}$) did not affect the growth of peritoneal macrophages and Colon 26-M3.1 carcinoma cells. In contrast, they enhanced lymphocyte proliferation activity. Peritoneal macrophages stimulated with PLW-0 and PLE-0 produced various cytokines, such as IL-6 and IL-12. However, PLE-0 was more effective on the cytokine production. Intravenous administration of PLW-0 and PLE-0 significantly augmented natural killer (NK) cell cytotoxicity against Yac-1 tumor cells 3 days after the treatment of polysaccharide fractions. But NK cells obtained from the PLE-treated group showed higher tumoricidal activity even at a low dose of $40{\mu}g$/mouse. In experimental lung metastasis of Colon 26-M3.1 carcinoma cells, prophylactic administration of PLW-0 and PLE-0 significantly inhibited lung metastasis in a dose-dependent manner and PLE-0 was more effective on the inhibition of cancer metasasis. The results lead us to conclude that the pectinase-treated process is indispensable to preparing polysaccharides with higher immune-stimulating activity from persimmon leaves.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.248-254
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• 2022

Background: Occupational hazards in crop farms vary diversely based on different field operations as soil management, harvesting processes, pesticide, or fertilizer application. We aimed at evaluating the immunological status of crop farmers, as limited systematic investigations on immune alteration involved with crop farming have been reported yet. Methods: Immunological parameters including plasma immunoglobulin level, major peripheral immune cells distribution, and level of cytokine production from activated T cell were conducted. Nineteen grape orchard, 48 onion open-field, and 21 rose greenhouse farmers were participated. Results: Significantly low proportion of natural killer (NK) cell, a core cell for innate immunity, was revealed in the grape farmers (19.8±3.3%) in comparison to the onion farmers (26.4±3.1%) and the rose farmers (26.9±2.5%), whereas cytotoxic T lymphocyte proportion was lower in the grape and the onion farmers than the rose farmers. The proportion of NKT cell, an immune cell implicated with allergic response, was significantly higher in the grape (2.3±0.3%) and the onion (1.6±0.8%) farmers compared with the rose farmers (1.0±0.4%). A significantly decreased interferon-gamma:interleukin-13 ratio was observed from ex vivo stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells of grape farmers compared with the other two groups. The grape farmers revealed the lowest levels of plasma IgG1 and IgG4, and their plasma IgE level was not significantly different from that of the onion or the rose farmers. Conclusion: Our finding suggests the high vulnerability of workplace-mediated allergic immunity in grape orchard farmers followed by open-field onion farmers and then the rose greenhouse farmers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.216-223
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• 2014

Curcuma longa L. (CL) is a well known traditional medicinal plant that is also used in curries and mustards as a coloring and flavoring agent. However, CL is not usually used as a food source due to its bitter taste. We investigated the immunomodulatory effect of CL fermented by Aspergillus oryzae (FCL) on RAW 264.7 cells. FCL was extracted with cold water (CW), hot water (HW), 20% ethanol (20% EtOH) and 80% ethanol (80% EtOH), after which its effects on phagocytic activity, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-${\alpha}$), nitric oxide (NO) production, natural killer (NK) cell activity and mRNA expression of LP-BM5 eco were investigated. Phagocytic activity was increased in HW and 20% EtOH when compared to the control. The secretion of nitric oxide (NO) from RAW 264.7 cells did not change significantly relative to the control. However, TNF-${\alpha}$ was significantly increased by the addition of FCL extracts. Moreover, FCL 20% ethanol extract showed a four fold increase in NK cell cytotoxity relative to the control group. Finally, we observed suppressed mRNA expression of LP-BM5 eco in FCL extracts, especially in the 20% ethanol extracts group. These results indicate that the FCL extracts can be used as a functional material due to their effective immunomodulating activities.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.1345-1354
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• 2016

Alopecia areata (AA) is a common and tissue-specific autoimmune disease of hair follicle resulting in the loss of hair on the scalp and elsewhere on the body. Hair follicles is a unique organ because it has its own immune system and hormonal milieu and has a different immune state at each hair cycle stage. The collapses of anagen-dependent hair follicle immune privilege arise autoimmune attack, inducing ectopic MHC class I expression in the hair follicle epithelium and autoantigen presentation to autoreactive CD8+T cells, which results in AA. Clinical and experimental studies have pointed that psychological stress may also influence the hair follicle immune/hormone systems and contribute to the induction of AA. The key pathogenesis of AA is associated with immune privilege guardians (including ACTH, ${\alpha}-MSH$, and $TGF-{\beta}$), natural killer group 2D-positive (NKG2D+) cells (including NK and CD8+T cells), and stress hormones (including CRH and substance P). Effective treatments for AA are still demanded. One of the future targets of treatment will be the modification of hair follicle immune privilege including stress. Recent studies have reported that JAK inhibitors and immunomodulators used in other autoimmune disease, such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and rheumatoid arthritis, Tregs, platelet-rich plasma therapy, statins, and prostaglandin anaolgues are effective for AA. Here the article reviews the recent understanding in the pathogenesis associated with perifollicular endocrine/immunology and new treatments of AA.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.210-216
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• 2009

This study was performed to compare the effects of immuno-modulating activities of Rhodiola sachalinensis A. Bor. fractionized by consecutive solvent separation. The Cytotoxicity of all fractionized extracts on human kidney cell (HEK293) was lower than crude extracts. Generally, the butanol and chloroform extracts showed less cytotoxicity on about 10.07% and 9.67% than the crude extracts. For human immune B and T cell growth, chloroform fraction showed the highest cell growth compared to the control. The secretion of cytokines (IL-6, $TNF-\alpha$) on human B and T cells were increased by adding chloroform extracts. Also, NK cell growth was significantly improved up to nearly 30% by adding the supernatant of B cell medium grown with the chloroform fraction. It was also found that chloroform fraction could yield higher nitric oxide production from macrophage than untreated control cells. Differentiation of HL-60 cells was increased up to 131.9% after treatment with chloroform fraction extracts, compared to the control. These results indicate that the chloroform fraction of R. sachalinensis have high immune activation activity than others fractions and the crude extracts, implying that this chloroform fractions could be used a new functional material.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1993.05a
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• pp.92-92
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• 1993

It is generally agreed that cellular immune functions are damaged by radiation therapy(RT). However, the exact effects of RT on peripheral lymphocytes are not yet clear. Authors previously reported the radiation effects on lymphocytes subpopulations, but these results merely showed the alteration of proportion of lymphocytes subpopulations after RT. So we try to evaluate the number of lymphocytes in each subpopulations as well as the proportion of subpopulations, and the recovery patterns of these alterations by time duraion after RT. The result shows that the proportion of subpopulations and number of lymphocytes in each subpopulations are decreased after RT except natural killer cells(NK cells), which proportion is increased but number is not changed, and these changes are stationary continued for post RT 6 months and then gradually recovered. However, the radiation effects on peripheral lymphocytes still remain after one year.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.4
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• pp.399-408
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• 2009

We investigated the improvement of immuno-modulatory activities of sap of Acer mono and A. okamotoanum encapsulated with edible polymers. Anticancer activities and immune activities such as human B and T cell growth, secretion of cytokines and natural killer cell growth were observed. Both human immune B and T cells were increased up to 30~50% by the addition of nano particle sap of Acer mono and A. okamotoanum. The secretion of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and Tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) from human immune B and T cells were also significantly increased compare to the control. Natural Killer (NK) cell growth was enhanced to $19.4{\times}10^5$ cells/mL in adding nano encapsulated sap of A.okamotoanum. The cytotoxicity of the sample on normal human lung cell (HEL299) was below 19.8% in adding 1.0 mg/mL of the nano particle sap of A. okamotoanum. Generally, the growth of all three human lung adenocarcinoma, human stomach adenocarcinoma and human liver adenocarcinama was inhibited up to 85% in adding 1.0 mg/mL of the encapsulated sap. Interestingly enough, the encapsulated sap was completely penetrated into human cancer cells within 30 min after addition. It showed that the encapsulation of the sap definitely increased its biological activities, which can expand its use to wide range of food industries.