Curcuma, a genus of rhizomatous herbaceous species, has been used as a spice, traditional medicine, and natural dye. In this study, the metabolite profile of Curcuma extracts was determined using gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (GC/TOF MS) and ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF MS) to characterize differences between Curcuma aromatica and Curcuma longa grown on the Jeju-do or Jin-do islands, South Korea. Previous studies have performed primary metabolite profiling of Curcuma species grown in different regions using NMR-based metabolomics. This study focused on profiling of secondary metabolites from the hexane extract of Curcuma species. Principal component analysis OPEN ACCESS Molecules 2014, 19 9536(PCA) and partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) plots showed significant differences between the C. aromatica and C. longa metabolite profiles, whereas geographical location had little effect. A t-test was performed to identify statistically significant metabolites, such as terpenoids. Additionally, targeted profiling using UPLC/Q-TOF MS showed that the concentration of curcuminoids differed depending on the plant origin. Based on these results, a combination of GC-and LC-MS allowed us to analyze curcuminoids and terpenoids, the typical bioactive compounds of Curcuma, which can be used to discriminate Curcuma samples according to species or geographical origin.

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The antioxidant enzyme and DPPH radical scavenging activity with variations in drying methods of diploid and tetraploid in Platycodon grandiflorum were determined. Antioxidant enzyme activities were measured as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POX), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX). The roots of Platycodon grandiflorum were freeze-dried, indoor-dried, hot-air dried, and microwave dried. The root extract of P. grandiflorum have shown the highest SOD enzyme activity of 92% in tetraploid of freeze-dried and indoor-dried while diploid of microwave dried showed the lowest SOD enzyme activity of 47.5%. The activity of CAT showed higher values in the root of tetraploid than in the diploid of P. grandiflorum in all drying methods. The APX activity showed relatively higher values in the root extract of freeze-dried both the diploid and tetraploid, but the difference in comparison with other extracts was not significant. The POX activities according to drying methods of diploid and tetraploid in P. grandiflorum showed relatively high values in freeze-dried and indoor-dried compared with other drying methods, and the POX activity between the diploid and tetraploid was not significant difference in each drying method. The DPPH radical scavenging activity with variation in drying methods of diploid and tetraploid in P. grandiflorum was the highest in the freeze-dried, and was higher in tetraploid than diploid in all the concentrations. In conclusion, the root of P. grandiflorum had the potent biological activities in both diploid and tetraploid. In particular, the tetraploid root of P. grandiflorum showing high antioxidant enzyme activity could be good materials for development of source of functional healthy food.

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Lactuca indica is an edible wild vegetable, which is frequently availed as a folk remedy for its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and other treatments in Asia. This study was executed to evaluate the cytotoxicity, antioxidant and phenolic contents of the methanol extracts from different organs of Lactuca indica. The highest amount of phenolics found in the methanol extracts of leaf (35.09 ± 0.15 mg/g), followed by stem (15.44 ± 0.20 mg/g), root (13.50 ± 0.19 mg/g) and flower (12.50 ± 0.39 mg/g) while the highest flavonoid contents also observed in the methanol extracts of leaf (26.90 ± 0.22 mg/g). Methanol extracts of leaf showed a pronounced DPPH radical scavenging activity (90.37 ± 0.15 mg/mL) and the ABTS radical scavenging activity (99.84 ± 0.02 mg/mL) at 10 mg/mL and 20 mg/mL respectively. Using MTT assay, the methanol extracts of leaf showed the highest cytotoxicity (IC 50 113.84 μg/mL) against human breast adenocarcinoma cell (MCF-7). To this end, the results revealed that the phenolic contents were highly correlated with the DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activity. The findings suggest that it could contribute to the antioxidant properties of different organs of the studied plant. In this regard, the cytotoxicity and antioxidant properties could be helpful for the evaluation of the bioactive properties of Lactuca indica.