Elucidation of The Functional Constituents of Plants Traditionally Used for Food Preservation

这项研究的目的是寻找和使用具有防止食品变质特性的天然产品。在这项研究中，我们将重点放在传统上用于包装食品的植物叶子上。这些植物可能含有一些有用的食品保鲜特性，如抗氧化剂和抗菌活性。根据我们的调查，我们挑选了11种主要在冲绳群岛采集的有前景的植物。对这些叶的提取物进行了抗氧化活性和清除自由基能力的检测。其中4种具有显著的抗氧化活性。从青蒿中分离得到7种抗氧化剂，包括二咖啡酰奎宁酸。从吉野市用于寿司包装的Kaki(Diospyros Kaki)叶中分离出凯菲尔醇，发现其对牙齿腐烂细菌变形链霉菌具有较高的抗菌活性。从高良姜中分离得到5个抗菌化合物，并鉴定了它们的结构，其中包括两个新的二烯基环丁烯类化合物。所有化合物对金黄色链球菌的生长都有很强的抑制作用。我们的研究表明，上述植物的成分可能有助于食品保鲜。

This study has aimed to find and use natural products which possess the properties to prevent food deterioration. In this research we have focused on the plant leaves which have been traditionally used to wrap foods. These plants might contain some useful properties for food preservation such as antioxidant and antimicrobial activity.We selected promising eleven plants collected mainly in Okinawa islands based on our survey. The extracts of those leaves were examined for antioxidant activity and radical scavenging ability. Four of them showed remarkable antioxidant activity.From YOMOGI (Artemisia princeps ), 7 polyphenols were isolated as antioxidants including dicaffeoylquinic acids. Kaempherol was isolated from KAKI (Diospyros kaki) leaves, which are used to wrap SUSHI in Yoshino, was revealed to show high antimicrobial activity against Streptocuccus mutans, a tooth-decaying bacteria. Five antimicrobial compounds were found from IRIOMOTEKUMATAKERAN (Alpinia flavellata) and determined their structures including two new distyrylcyclobutenoids. All compounds strongly inhibited the growth of Streptococcus aureus.Our present study suggests that the constituents of the above plants could be useful for food preservation.