plants Article Vasorelaxant Effect of Boesenbergia rotunda and Its Active Ingredients on an Isolated Coronary Artery 1, 1, 1 1 2 Deepak Adhikari y, Dal-Seong Gong y, Se Hee Oh , Eun Hee Sung , Seung On Lee , Dong-Wook Kim 2, Min-Ho Oak 1,* and Hyun Jung Kim 1,* 1 College of Pharmacy and Natural Medicine Research Institute, Mokpo National University, Muan-gun 58554, Korea;
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[email protected] (H.J.K.); Tel.: +82-61-450-2681 (M.-H.O.); +82-61-450-2686 (H.J.K.) The authors contributed to this work equally. y Received: 4 November 2020; Accepted: 27 November 2020; Published: 1 December 2020 Abstract: Cardiovascular diseases are a major cause of death in developed countries. The regulation of vascular tone is a major approach to prevent and ameliorate vascular diseases. As part of our ongoing screening for cardioprotective natural compounds, we investigated the vasorelaxant effect of rhizomes from Boesenbergia rotunda (L.) Mansf. [Boesenbergia pandurata (Roxb.) Schltr.] used as a spice and herbal medicine in Asian countries. The methanol extract of B. rotunda rhizomes (BRE) exhibited significant vasorelaxation effects ex vivo at EC values of 13.4 6.1 µg/mL and 40.9 7.9 µg/mL, 50 ± ± respectively, with and without endothelium in the porcine coronary artery ring.