Zanthoxylum ailanthoides

Zanthoxylum ailanthoides (ZA) has been used as folk medicines in East Asian and recently reported to have several bioactivity; however, the studies of ZA on the regulation of triacylglycerol (TG) biosynthesis have not been elucidated yet. In this study, we examined whether the methanol extract of ZA (ZA-M) could reduce oleic acid- (OA-) induced intracellular lipid accumulation and confirmed its mode of action in HepG2 cells. ZA-M was shown to promote the phosphorylation of AMPK and its upstream LKB1, followed by reduction of lipogenic gene expressions. As a result, treatment of ZA-M blocked de novo TG biosynthesis and subsequently mitigated intracellular neutral lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells. ZA-M also inhibited OA-induced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and TNF-α, suggesting that ZA-M possess the anti-inflammatory feature in fatty acid over accumulated condition. Taken together, these results suggest that ZA-M attenuates OA-induced lipid accumulation and inflammation through the activation of LKB1/AMPK signaling pathway in HepG2 cells

Exergy Analysis for Utilizing Latent Energy of Thermal Energy Storage System in District Heating

The thermal energy storage (TES) system stores the district heating (DH) water when the heating load is low. Since a TES system stores heat at atmospheric pressure, the DH water temperature of 115 °C has to be lowered to less than 100 °C. Therefore, the temperature drop of the DH water results in thermal loss during storage. In addition, the DH water must have high pressure to supply heat to DH users a long distance from the CHP plant. If heat is to be stored in the TES system, a pressure drop in the throttling valve occurs. These exergy losses, which occur in the thermal storage process of the general TES system, can be analyzed by exergy analysis to identify the location, cause and the amount of loss. This study evaluated the efficiency improvement of a TES system through exergy calculation in the heat storage process. The method involves power generation technology using the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and a hydraulic turbine. As a result, the 930 kW capacity ORC and the 270 kW capacity hydraulic turbine were considered suitable for a heat storage system that stores 3000 m3/h. In this case, each power generation facility was 50% of the thermal storage capacity, which was attributed to the variation of actual heat storage from the annual operating pattern analysis. Therefore, it was possible to produce 1200 kW of power by recovering the exergy losses. The payback period of the ORC and the hydraulic turbine will be 3.5 and 7.13 years, respectively

Microalgal-Based Carbon Sequestration by Converting LNG-Fired Waste CO2 into Red Gold Astaxanthin: The Potential Applicability

The combinatorial approach of anthropogenic activities and CO2 sequestration is becoming a global research trend to alleviate the average global temperature. Although microalgae have been widely used to capture CO2 from industrial flue gas, the application of bioproducts was limited to bioenergy due to the controversy over the quality and safety of the products in the food and feed industry. Herein, the waste CO2 emitted from large point sources was directly captured using astaxanthin-hyperproducing microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis. Astaxanthin production was successfully carried out using the hypochlorous acid water-based axenic culture process under highly contamination-prone outdoor conditions. Consequently, after 36 days of autotrophic induction, the productivity of biomass and astaxanthin of H. pluvialis (the mutant) reached 0.127 g L−1 day−1 and 5.47 mg L−1 day−1 under high summer temperatures, respectively, which was 38% and 48% higher than that of wild type cell. After grinding the wet astaxanthin-enriched biomass, the extract was successfully approved by compliance validation testing from Korea Food and Drug Administration. The assorted feed improved an immune system of the poultry without causing any side effects. The flue gas-based bioproducts could certainly be used for health functional food for animals in the future

Potent inhibition of human tyrosinase inhibitor by verproside from the whole plant of Pseudolysimachion rotundum var. subintegrum

AbstractAffinity-based ultrafiltration–mass spectrometry coupled with ultraperformance liquid chromatography–quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry was utilised for the structural identification of direct tyrosinase ligands from a crude Pseudolysimachion rotundum var. subintegrum extract. False positives were recognised by introducing time-dependent inhibition in the control for comparison. The P. rotundum extract contained nine main metabolites in the UPLC-QTOF-MS chromatogram. However, four metabolites were reduced after incubation with tyrosinase, indicating that these metabolites were bound to tyrosinase. The IC50 values of verproside (1) were 31.2 µM and 197.3 µM for mTyr and hTyr, respectively. Verproside showed 5.6-fold higher efficacy than that of its positive control (kojic acid in hTyr). The most potent tyrosinase inhibitor, verproside, features a 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid moiety on the iridoid glycoside and inhibits tyrosinase in a time-dependent and competitive manner. Among these three compounds, verproside is bound to the active site pocket with a docking energy of −6.9 kcal/mol and four hydrogen bonding interactions with HIS61 and HIS85

Verproside, the Most Active Ingredient in YPL-001 Isolated from <i>Pseudolysimachion rotundum</i> var. <i>subintegrum</i>, Decreases Inflammatory Response by Inhibiting PKCδ Activation in Human Lung Epithelial Cells

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory lung disease which causes breathing problems. YPL-001, consisting of six iridoids, has potent inhibitory efficacy against COPD. Although YPL-001 has completed clinical trial phase 2a as a natural drug for COPD treatment, the most effective iridoid in YPL-001 and its mechanism for reducing airway inflammation remain unclear. To find an iridoid most effectively reducing airway inflammation, we examined the inhibitory effects of the six iridoids in YPL-001 on TNF or PMA-stimulated inflammation (IL-6, IL-8, or MUC5AC) in NCI-H292 cells. Here, we show that verproside among the six iridoids most strongly suppresses inflammation. Both TNF/NF-κB-induced MUC5AC expression and PMA/PKCδ/EGR-1-induced IL-6/-8 expression are successfully reduced by verproside. Verproside also shows anti-inflammatory effects on a broad range of airway stimulants in NCI-H292 cells. The inhibitory effect of verproside on the phosphorylation of PKC enzymes is specific to PKCδ. Finally, in vivo assay using the COPD-mouse model shows that verproside effectively reduces lung inflammation by suppressing PKCδ activation and mucus overproduction. Altogether, we propose YPL-001 and verproside as candidate drugs for treating inflammatory lung diseases that act by inhibiting PKCδ activation and its downstream pathways

Assessment of iridoid profiles in the growth period of aerial parts of Pseudolysimachion rotundum var. subintegrum and their antioxidant and MUC5AC inhibitory potential

Abstract YPL-001 is a drug substance of Pseudolysimachion rotundum var. subintegrum and has been reported to be a potent COPD inhibitor. For the first time, this study demonstrated a correlation among the iridoid constituents, antioxidants, and MUC5AC inhibition activities in P. rotundum during different growth stages (5 to 11 weeks). Single-factor extraction was used to optimize the plant extraction conditions to maximize the major iridoid constituents (70% ethanol, 40 °C, 1 h); isolated metabolites 1–6 were identified using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS). The contents of each metabolite and antioxidant/MUC5AC inhibition effects were markedly changed according to the growth stages, especially for catalposide (2, 5.97 → 10.99 mg/g, 1.8-fold) and isovanillyl catapol (5, 4.42 → 20.00 mg/g, 4.5-fold), which were the predominant substances in August. Our results indicated that YPL-001 could potentially contribute to enhancing the P. rotundum value in accumulated iridoids at the growth stage and the biological effect aspects to develop industrial medicinal crops