• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.218-224
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• 2024

Plants are treasure trove of novel compounds that have potential for antifungal chemicals and drugs. In our previous study, we had screened plant extracts obtained from more than eight hundred plant materials collected in Korea, and found that butanol fraction of the Actinostemma lobatum were most potent in suppressing growth of diverse fungal pathogens of plants. Here in this study, we describe further analysis of the butanol fraction, and summarize the results of subsequent antifungal activity test for the sub-fractions against a selected set of plant pathogenic fungi. This line of analyses allowed us to identify the sub-fractions that could account for a significant proportion of observed antifungal activity of initial butanol fraction from A. lobatum. Further analysis of these sub-fractions and determination of structure would provide the shortlist for novel compounds that can be a lead to new agrochemicals.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.1383-1391
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• 2016

The fungal strain EML-DML3PNa1 isolated from leaf of white dogwood (Cornus alba L.) showed strong nematicidal activity with juvenile mortality of 87.6% at a concentration of 20% fermentation broth filtrate at 3 days after treatment. The active fungal strain was identified as Aspergillus oryzae, which belongs to section Flavi, based on the morphological characteristics and sequence analysis of the ITS rDNA, calmodulin (CaM), and β-tubulin (BenA) genes. The strain reduced the pH value to 5.62 after 7 days of incubation. Organic acid analysis revealed the presence of citric acid (515.0 mg/kg), malic acid (506.6 mg/kg), and fumaric acid (21.7 mg/kg). The three organic acids showed moderate nematicidal activities, but the mixture of citric acid, malic acid, and fumaric acid did not exhibit the full nematicidal activity of the culture filtrate of EML- DML3PNa1. Bioassay-guided fractionation coupled with ¹H- and ¹³C-NMR and EI-MS analyses led to identification of kojic acid as the major nematicidal metabolite. Kojic acid exhibited dose-dependent mortality and inhibited the hatchability of M. incognita, showing EC₅₀ values of 195.2 μg/ml and 238.3 μg/ml, respectively, at 72 h post-exposure. These results suggest that A. oryzae EML-DML3PNa1 and kojic acid have potential as a biological control agent against M. incognita.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.323-330
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• 2016

Pinellia ternata Breitenbach, the natural medicinal plant of the Araceae family, is a perennial plant originated from the East Asia, but also widely distributed in Europe and North America. Its tuber is used as traditional medicine for treatment of various diseases such as vomiting, inflammation, and traumatic injury. Pharmacological studies revealed that P. ternata possesses anticonvulsant, anti-tumor, insecticidal, and cytotoxic activities. Despite being well-known as the useful medicinal plant, there is no reliable, standardized method for origin discrimination. Ultra performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array detector and quadrupole time of flight-mass spectrometry based metabolite-profiling was applied to explore significant metabolite for origin discrimination between Korean and Chinese P. ternata. One compound was isolated from Korean P. ternata using repeated ODS column chromatography by bioactivity guided fractionation, and determined as [6]-gingerol according to the results of spectroscopic data including nuclear magnetic resonance and MS. This compound was selected as cosmeceutical biomarker by fingerprints, and it was associated to melanin inhibitory effect determining its origin authenticity. Furthermore, the calibration curve of biomarker was prepared using validated method for the comparison of content between Korean and Chinese P. ternata. This is the report to address the selection and successful validation of the discriminant metabolite for confirmation of Korean P. ternata.