Radical scavenging activities of active fractions
The ethanol extracts of RG, CG, and MCG were patriated by different polarity solutions involving hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate,n -butanol and residual water-layer extracts. Fifteen fractions were obtained. A total of 48 CAEs were collected from sixteen kinds of enzyme-assisted ginseng residues.
All fifteen ethanol extracts showed low scavenging activities. Among the 48 CAEs, the scavenging capability of OH- in the three ginsengs showed stronger activities than those of DPPH and O2-. Among the sixteen kinds of enzymes, alkaline protease-assisted extract of MCG (APMCG) demonstrated the highest inhibitory effect on OH- in a dose-dependent manner (Fig. 1A, 1B, 1C). Four active factions were harvested from the step-gradient ethanol precipitation at ratios of 30%, 60%, 80%, and 90%, and they named APMCG-1, APMCG-2, APMCG-3, and APMCG-4, respectively. As shown in Fig.1D, APMCG-1 demonstrated the most marked inhibitory effect on OH- (84.16%).