Vitamin U in Medicinal Food Plants

Vitamin U levels in 26 kinds of food plants are well known to healthy vegetables in Asian or Western countries were determined. Spinach showed the highest level of 452.04 mg/kg and in order Pack-choi (343.18 mg/kg) > Kale (234.18 mg/kg) > Somssukbujaengi (197.66 mg/kg) > leaf mustard (196.21 mg/kg) > aralia bud (192.50 mg/kg)> broccoli (189.03 mg/kg) >Asparagus (187.35 mg/kg). Among Korean wild medicinal plants, Sumssukbujaengi showed the highest value followed by Sanmanul (a kind of wild garlic) level of 143.46 mg/kg. For Chinese cabbages and cabbages, vitamin U showed different levels according to the parts of plant such as core, middle, outward leaves. In both samples, middle parts of leaves including midribs contained the highest level of vitamin U. The level of vitamin U was dependent on the part of the plant sample and cultivars. Leaf parts of turnip and white radish showed higher value of 84.82 mg/kg and 124.62 mg/kg than those of roots which were in order of middle (112.39 mg/kg), top (84.84 mg/kg) and bottom (84.61 mg/kg) portions in the white radish. In the analysis of amino acids, we didn't find either distinctive relationship between methionine and vitamin U synthesis or significant connection various free amino acids and vitamin U level in food plants.