Screening of Skin Whitening Activity of Codonopsis lanceolata Extract by Complex Steaming Process

*Department of Medical Biomaterials Engineering, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, Korea.**Department of Food Science and Engineering, Seowon University, Chungju 361-742, Korea.***Hankook Cosmo Cosmetics Co., Bucheon 421-808, Korea.****Shebah Biotech Co., Chuncheon Bioindustry Foundation Hi-tech Venture Town, Chuncheon 200-161, Korea.ABSTRACT : According to previous reports, antioxidant activities of Codonopsis lanceolata could be increased by a steam-ing process. This study was performed to improve its antioxidant activity and skin whitening activities of C. lanceolata byhigh pressure and stepwise steaming complex process. The complex processed C. lanceolata showed highest free radicalscavenging acitivity as 45.21%, and for phenol and flavonoid contents, complex processed C. lanceolata contained higherthan those from conventional extraction process or steaming process alone. The Cytotoxicity of all C. lanceolata extracts alsoshowed low cytotoxicity against human fibroblast cell (CCD-986sk) as 4.49 ~ 10.40%. In whitening activity, high inhibitionof tyrosinase activity was estimated as 25.08% by adding the extracts from complex process. We found that whitening andantioxidant activity of complex processed C. lancolata extract was higher than those obtained from conventional extractionand a steaming process because various kinds of antioxidant compounds could be easily released by combined process, com-pared to one of each process.Key Words : High Pressure Process, Stepwise Hot Steaming Process, Antioxidative activity, Skin Whitening, Codonopsis lanceolata