Studies On The Chemical Constituents And Bioactivities Of The Aerial Parts Of Trigonella Foenum-graecum L. And Of The Roots Of Inula Helenium L.

Natural products have been used as lead of new drug and template for syntheses and played an important role in the drug discovery.Chinese traditional herbs,as a huge library of bioactive natural compounds,have been proved effective in the treatment of various diseases.Trigonella foenum-graecum L.is generally used as food and medicinal herbs in China and North African countries.In this study,the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of the various fractions and compounds from the aerial parts of T.foenumgraecum were assessed.The ethyl acetate fraction exhibited strong antioxidant and antiinflammatory activities.Twenty two compounds,which comtained 13 pterocarpans,were obtained through the bioassay-guided separation.Compound T1 was a new pterocarpan,and compounds T5-T13 were isolated from the aerial parts of T.foenumgraecum for the first time.Their structures were confirmed by spectroscopic analyses.Four pterocarpans showed antioxidant activity and eleven pterocarpans exhibited signifiacant anti-inflammatory activity.Inula helenium L.is widely distributed in East Asia and Europe.Its roots are used in Chinese traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases.The main bioactive constituets of the roots of Inula helenium were eudesmane-type sesquiterpene lactones,which had diverse architectures and displayed a lot of biological activities such as anti-inflammatory and antitumor activities.In this study,the chemical constituents of the roots of Inula helenium were investigated.Thirty compounds were isolated from the ethanol extract of the roots,their structures were confirmed by spectroscopic analyses.Compounds H1-H26 were the eudesmane-type sesquiterpene lactones and its derivates,ten(H17-H26)of them were new compounds.Among them,three new scaffold were found.Compound H20 has the new skeleton of decahydro-2’H-7-oxaspiro [bicycle [2.2.1] heptane-2,3’-naphtho [2,3-b] furan].Compouds H21 and H22 were the two examples of new 4-(hydroxymethyl)-decahydro-2’H-7–oxaspiro [bicycle [4.2.0] octane-3,3’– naphtho [2,3-b] furan] scaffold.Compounds H23 and H24 possess 2H-spiro [naphtho [2,3-b] furan-3,1’-pyrrolidines] skeleton,which bear a pyrrolidines structure.