On cultivation of the fungus Antrodia cinnamomea (BCRC 36799) on a medium, the mycelium was extracted and evaluated for nitric oxide (NO) inhibitory activity. Bioactivity-directed fractionation led to the isolation of two new maleimide derivatives, antrocinnamomins A (1) and B (2), and two new maleic anhydride derivatives, antrocinnamomins C (3) and D (4), along with three known compounds, 3-isobutyl-4-[4-(3-methyl-2-butenyloxy)phenyl]furan-2,5-dione (5), 3-isobutyl-4-[4-(3-methyl-2-butenyloxy)phenyl]-1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione (6), and 3-isobutyl-4-[4-(3-methyl-2-butenyloxy)phenyl]-1H-pyrrol-1-ol-2,5-dione (7). Structural elucidation of compounds 1-4 was carried out by spectroscopic data. Compound 1 displayed significant inhibitory effect on nitric oxide (NO) production.

No abstract

No abstract

Polygonum cuspidatum is a widely grown crop with a rich source of polydatin (also called piceid) for resveratrol production. Resveratrol is produced from piceid via enzymatic cleavage of the sugar moiety of piceid. In this study, Dekkera bruxellensis mutants were selected based on their high p-nitrophenyl-β-d-glucopyranoside and piceid conversion activities. The enzyme responsible for piceid conversion was a heterodimeric protein complex that was predominantly secreted to the extracellular medium and consisted of two subunits at an equal ratio with molecular masses of 30.5 kDa and 48.3 kDa. The two subunits were identified as SCW4p and glucan-β-glucosidase precursor in D. bruxellensis. Both proteins were individually expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae exg1Δ mutants, which lack extracellular β-glucosidase activity, to confirm each protein's enzymatic activities. Only the glucan-β-glucosidase precursor was shown to be a secretory protein with piceid deglycosylation activity. Our pilot experiments of piceid bioconversion demonstrate the possible industrial applications for this glucan-β-glucosidase precursor in the future.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Abstract-Miracle fruit has unique protein which can make sour flavors to sweet, and the bright red skin might be a natural pigment. After the harvest of miracle fruit, removal of fruit skin, fruit meat, the fruit seeds become natural side product using for biofertilizer. Recently, a growing research reports focus on the investigation of fruit seeds for screening potential antioxidants, such as steroids, phenols, and flavonoids as well. In this research, we verity miracle fruit seed is great multi-antioxidant source by different extraction solution. 3μg (GAE)/mg total phenolic and 3.1μg (RUE)/mg flavonoid content was measured when the miracle fruit was extracted by acetic acid buffer with 20mM at pH6.0 and pure ethanol. The antioxidation ability of DPPH and ABTS free radical scavenging was over 70%, chelating effect of ferrous ions reached 80%.Index Terms-Miracle fruit, fruit seed, total phenolics, antioxidant activity.