BACKGROUND Panax ginseng is a famous traditional medicine in Korea for its beneficial effect on obesity, cardiac and liver associated diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the metabolite in Panax ginseng (P. ginseng, Aralicaceae) berries depending on the ripen stages and evaluate its potential inhibition on adipocyte differentiation in 3 T3-L1 cells. METHODS Different ripening st...

Ethanol-induced fat accumulation, the earliest and most common response of the liver to ethanol exposure, may be involved in the pathogenesis of liver diseases. Isoliquiritigenin (ISL), an important constituent of Glycyrrhizae Radix, is a chalcone derivative that exhibits antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and phytoestrogenic activities. However, the effect of ISL treatment on lipid accumulation i...

AIM To evaluate the effects of chronic exposure to ethanol in the liver and the expression of inflammatory genes in zebrafish. METHODS Zebrafish (n = 104), wild type, adult, male and female, were divided into two groups: Control and ethanol (0.05 v/v). The ethanol was directly added into water; tanks water were changed every two days and the ethanol replaced. The animals were fed twice a day ...

Stevioside from Stevia rebaudiana has been reported to exert antihyperglycemic effects in both rat and human subjects. There have been few studies on these effects in vitro. In this paper, radioactive glucose uptake assay was implemented in order to assess improvements in insulin sensitivity in 3T3-L1 cells by elevation of glucose uptake following treatment with stevioside. Oil Red-O staining a...

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to identify the adipocyte-specific gene expression patterns in chorion-derived mesenchymal stem cells during adipogenic differentiation. MATERIALS AND METHODS Chorionic cells were isolated from the third trimester chorions from human placenta at birth and identified morphologically and by fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis. After inducing adipogenic...

AIMS This study aims to explore non-invasive imaging of atherosclerotic plaque through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) by using profilin-1 targeted magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (PF1-Cy5.5-DMSA-Fe3O4-NPs, denoted as PC-NPs) as multimodality molecular imaging probe in murine model of atherosclerosis. METHODS AND RESULTS PC-NPs were constructed by conj...

BACKGROUND Blood stasis syndrome (BSS) is a general pattern identification and refers to pathological stagnation of blood circulation, dysfunction of endothelial cells or metabolic disorder in traditional Korean medicine (TKM). Dohongsamul-Tang (DHSMT) is a well-known traditional herbal formula which used for treatment and prevention of BSS by promoting blood circulation in TKM. METHODS Cytot...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) offer significant promise as a multipotent source for cell-based therapies and could form the basis for the differentiation and cultivation of tissue grafts to replace damaged tissue. However, no gene expression follow up analysis has been undertaken to characterize the in vitro adipogenic differentiated MSCs. The main goal of this study was to focus on MSCs and to...

Biochanin A has promising effects on bone formation in vivo, although the underlying mechanism remains unclear yet. This study therefore aimed to investigate whether biochanin A regulates osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation using primary adipose-derived stem cells. The effects of biochanin A (at a physiologically relevant concentration of 0.1-1 μM) were assessed in vitro using various app...