Fig. 2.

The ERβ-dependent estrogenic activity of the Japanese herbal medicines and the metabolized herbal medicines in the yeast two-hybrid assay. a Yeast cells that had been transfected with hERβ were incubated with 0.1 mg/ml to 10 mg/ml of UKT (◊), KSS (□), TSS (○), NSS (▲), or KBG (■) for 4 h at 30°C. ERβ-dependent estrogenic activity was evaluated based on the β-galactosidase activity measured at 450 nm using ONPG as a substrate. b The Japanese herbal medicines (1 mg/ml) were treated with the rat S9 fraction, and the ERβ-dependent estrogenic activity of the metabolized herbal medicines (black columns) was compared with that of the unmetabolized medicines (white columns) using the yeast two-hybrid assay. **significantly increased compared with the activity of the unmetabolized medicine, p < 0.01