The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of 3 types of medicinal herbs (Glycyrrhizae radix, Astragali radix and Dioscorea rhizoma) extracts on estrogen-like activities, proliferation and differentiation in osteoblast. Human breast cancer cell line MCF7 was transfected using an estrogen responsive luciferase reporter plasmid for measure the estrogen-like activity. Estrogen-like activities of extracts were in the range of 1.11~5.73 fold to that of negative control. The extract of G. radix showed the strongest estrogen-like activities. The estrogen-like activities of 50 and 500 μg/ml extracts of G. radix were similar to that of 10 -8 and 10 -7 M standard solution (17β-estradiol), respectively. G. radix extract showed no cytotoxicity against osteoblast MC3T3-E1 cells at 1~1,000 μg/ml. The extract of A. radix showed no significant proliferation of osteoblast. However, the extract of G. radix and D. rhizome showed maximum 148% and 133% proliferation effects. The extract of G. radix also increased alkaline phosphatase activity and the maximum was 122% at 100 μg/ml compared to that of control. The nodule formation by the method of the Alizarin red S staining increased compared to control. These results suggest that G. radix is able to perform the bone formation and prevent osteoporosis.Key words : Estrogen-like activity, luciferase, medicinal herbs, menopausal women, osteoblast *Corresponding authorTel : +82-51-999-5624, Fax : +82-51-999-5636 E-mail : slee@silla.ac.kr This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 한약재는 오랜 기간 동안 임상적 경험을 토대로 하여 많은

The purpose of this study is to find a policy and to predict the needs of legislative information service of the 20th National Assembly. For this purpose, It is critical to understand the use behavior of legislative information service according to the attribute for the member of the 19th National Assembly. Thus, this study examined the results of reference service of National Assembly Library of Korea using the politics attribute and the relation attribute as independent variables for the member of the National Assembly in the First Half of the 19th National Assembly. Consequently, there were meaningful differences in the use of legislative information service between users by party affiliation, method of an election and introversion. Also, the increased demand of legislative information service was predicted in that the 20th National Assembly is the status of the opposition majority and the three major parties.

This study aimed to isolate a novel agarase-producing marine bacterium and characterize its agarase, as agarases are known to produce biofunctional agarooligosaccharides or neo-agarooligosaccharides. A novel agar-degrading bacterium, SH-2, was isolated from the seawater of Namhae in Gyeongnam Province, Korea, and cultured in Marine agar 2216 medium. The 16S rRNA gene sequence represented 99% identity with that of the members of the Marinomonas genus; hence, the isolated bacterium was named Marinomonas sp. SH-2. The crude agarase was prepared from a culture medium of Marinomonas. sp SH-2, and exhibited maximum agarase activity at 170.2 units/l. The optimum conditions were pH 6.0 and 30℃ in 20 mM Tris-HCl buffer. The agarase activity of the bacterium was highly elevated from 20℃(42% relative activity) to 30℃(100%), and 82% activity was shown at 40℃. Its relative activities were less than 40% at over 40℃ after a 0.5 hr exposure. Relative activity was 100% at pH 6.0, while it was 72% and 48% at pH 5.0 and pH 7.0, respectively. The enzyme from Marinomonas sp. SH-2 degraded agarose to neoagarohexaose and neoagarotetraose, indicating that the enzyme is β-agarase. Thus, Marinomonas sp. SH-2 and its enzyme could be practical for applications in food, cosmetic, and medical research.