Abstract
Red ginseng is one of the most popular traditional medicines in Korea because its soluble hot-water extract is known to be very effective on enhancing immunity as well as inhibiting inflammation. Recently, we developed a new technique, called the HAC-gearshift system, which can pulverize red ginseng into the ultra-fine granules ranging from 0.2 to 7.0 μm in size. In this study, the soluble hot-water extract of those ultra-fine granules of red ginseng (URG) was investigated and compared to that of the normal-sized granules of red ginseng (RG). The high pressure liquid chromatographic analyses of the soluble hot-water extracts of both URG and RG revealed that URG had about 2-fold higher amounts of the ginsenosides, the biologically active components in red ginseng, than RG did. Using quantitative RT-PCR, cytokine profiling against the Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the monocyte-derived macrophage THP-1 cells demonstrated that the URG-treated cells showed a significant reduction in cytokine expression than the RG-treated ones. Transcription expression of the LPS-induced cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and TGF-β was significantly inhibited by URG compared to RG. These results suggest that some biologically active and soluble components in red ginseng can be more effectively extracted from URG than RG by standard hot-water extraction.
Highlights
Among the several species of the genus Panax, Panax ginseng, so called “Korean ginseng”, is the most popular ginseng in Korea
Biophysical properties of ultra-fine granules of red ginseng (URG) prepared by the HAC-gearshift system
Transmission electron microscopic analysis showed that the average size of URG was approximately 3.5 μm, while that of the normal granules prepared by the conventional pulverization system (RG) was about 127 μm (Figure 2)
Summary
Among the several species of the genus Panax, Panax ginseng, so called “Korean ginseng”, is the most popular ginseng in Korea. Red ginseng has been used as a prophylactic medicine to enhance immunity as well as inhibit inflammation in various diseases for a long time in Korea. Fine balance between both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines is believed critical for host defense against the diseases Supporting this notion, increasing evidence implies that the modulation of cytokine expression may provide an alternative therapeutic approach for various diseases [6, 7]. We hypothesized that this physical modification from normal to ultra-fine granules of medicinal herbs by the HAC-gearshift system could enhance their medicinal effects To test this hypothesis, the ultra-fine granules of red ginseng (URG) were formulated using the HAC-gearshift system and used to prepare the soluble extract by standard hot-water extraction. The soluble hot-water extract of URG was compared to that of the normal granules of red ginseng for their biochemical compositions and previously defined anti-inflammatory activities
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