Depigmentation of Melanocytes by (2<i>Z</i>,8<i>Z</i>)-Matricaria Acid Methyl Ester Isolated from <i>Erigeron breviscapus</i>

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

<P>To discover an active skin depigmenting agent, we isolated a novel inhibitor of melanin biosynthesis from the methanol extract of <I>Erigeron breviscapus</I> using a bioactivity-guided fractionation and identified it as (2<I>Z</I>,8<I>Z</I>)-matricaria acid methyl ester by means of spectroscopic analysis. The compound showed strong whitening activity in melan-a cell. Compared with arbutin (IC<SUB>50</SUB>=4.0 m<SMALL>M</SMALL>) as a positive control, the depigmentation IC<SUB>50</SUB> value for (2<I>Z</I>,8<I>Z</I>)-matricaria acid methyl ester was 25.4 μ<SMALL>M</SMALL> in B16F10 melanoma cell. Moreover, its inhibitory effect on tyrosinase, the key enzyme of melanogenesis, was examined by <I>in vivo</I> and <I>in vitro</I> tyrosinase assay and Western blot. The results indicate that (2<I>Z</I>,8<I>Z</I>)-matricaria acid methyl ester isolated from <I>Erigeron breviscapus</I> is a promising compound that could be useful for treating hyper-pigmentation as skin-whitening agents.</P>