Studies On The Chemical Constituents Of Angelica Dahurica And Cudrania Fruticosa

1.Studies on the chemical constituents of Angelica dahuricaAngelica dahurica Benth. et Hook. f. var. formosana Shan et Yuan belongs to theUmbelliferae family, Angelica genus. Radix Angelicae dahuricae, the roots ofAngelica dahurica Benth. et Hook. f. or Angelica dahurica Benth. et Hook. f. var.formosana Shan et Yuan (Umbelliferae), have been used in Chinese traditionalmedicine as an analgesic, antibiotic and anti-inflammatory agent. In order to makefurther use of the Chinese herbal resources and promote the modernization oftraditional Chinese medicine, a phytochemical investigation has been carried out.Twenty compounds were isolated from the ethanol extract of the roots ofAngelica dahurica collected in SuiNing of Sichuan province using various modemchromatographic techniques. On the basis of classical chemical methods and modemspectrometric approaches, including UV, IR, ¹HNMR, ¹³CNMR, ¹H-¹HCOSY, HMQC,HMBC, NOESY, EI-MS, etc., the structures of nineteen compounds among themwere established. Of the nineteen compounds identified, three compounds were foundto be isolated from this plant for the first time.Those compounds identified included thirteen linear 6,7-furanocoumarins, apyrrole derivative, two organic acids and three sterols. The structures of them wereelucidated as follows: isoimperatorin(BZH-1), imperatorin(BZH-2), bergapten(BZH-3), alloimperatorin(BZH-4), xanthotoxol(BZH-5), 8-methoxy-5-hydroxypsoralen(BZH-6), byakangelicin(BZH-7), oxypeucedanin hydrate(BZH-8), phellopterin(BZH-9), xanthotoxin(BZH-10), isopimpinellin(BZH-11), alloisoimperatorin(BZH-12), psoralenquinone(BZH-13), 3-methoxy-1H-pyrrole(BZH-15), palmiticacid(BZH-16), stearic acid(BZH-17),β-sitosterol(BZH-18), stigmasterol(BZH-19),daucosterol(BZH-20). Among these compounds, BZH-6, BZH-13 and BZH-15 wereisolated from this plant for the first time.A quantitative analysis of the chemical constituents of Angelica dahurica hasbeen undertaken in order to control the quality of Chinese medicines. Four linear 6,7-furanocoumarins isolated from Angelica dahurica were separated utilizing aRP-HPLC method and three of them were quantitated. According to the qualityspecification of Chinese Pharmacia (Edition 2000), we have set up the qualitystandard of this medicine using imperatorin as the guideline compound on the basis ofour work. While the standard we had established needs to be proved constantly.The finger print of this medicine has been tried to establish using the RP-HPLCmethod and those of five different materials were compared.Simple pharmacological tests have been carried out with several parts of ethanolextract of this medicine. It has been revealed that the parts of ethyl acetate andn-butanol could obviously inhibit the immunities of mice, also they could prohibit theproduction of TNF-a, one of the most important inflammatory media of tissues. Itcould also be found that all parts displayed faintish prohibition to microbe such ascolibacillus and staphylococcus aureus. The mode of action and the effectivefoundation should be investigated thoroughly.In addition, advances in the research of chemical constituents andpharmacological activities of Angelica dahurica were reviewed in this paper with 32references. 2. Studies on the chemical constituents of Cudraniafruticosa Wight.Cudraniafruticosa Wight belongs to the Moraceae family, Cudrania genus, andis mainly distributed in Yunnan province of China. A certain plants of this genus havebeen reported to display anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective effects, anti-lipidperoxidation, antifungal and antimicrobial activities, and cytotoxicity to human tumorcell lines. It has been widely used for the treatment of neuralgia, rheumatics, hepatitis,contused wounds etc. in China.However, little has been documented on the chemical constituents or biologicalactivity of Cudraniafruticosa to date. It has been found that the ethanol extract of thisplant displayed cytotoxicity to tumor cell lines during the screening for activeconstituents. In order to make full use of our herbal materials and from which to findout some lead compounds that are more effective and lower poisonous, we haveundertaken a systematic investigation on the chemical constituents of the roots ofCudrania fruticosa.Modern chromatographic techniques have been used for the separation of ethanolextract of the roots of Cudrania fruticosa which were collected in Yunnan province ofChina. Twenty compounds were isolated and their structures were elucidated on thebasis of various modern spectroscopic analysis, including UV, IR, ¹HNMR, ¹³CNMR,^H-¹HCOSY, HMQC, HMBC, NOESY, EI-MS, ESI-MS, etc. Among the compoundsidentified, four were found to be new compounds, one compound to be new naturalproduct, ten were isolated from the Cudrania genus for the first time and five wereisolated from this plant for the first time.The four new compounds identified were all xanthones named as1,6,7-trihydroxy-2-(1,1 -dimethyl-2-propenyl)-3-methoxyxanthone(ZHT-11), 3,6,7-trihydroxy-1-methoxyxanthone(ZHT-4), Cudraxanthone U(ZHT-6), CudraxanthoneT(ZHT-10), respectively.Whilst the new natural product isolated was a xanthone, too. It was named as3,5,6-trihydroxy-1-methoxyxanthone (ZHT-5). In addition, the known compounds included six xanthones, eight flavonolglycosides and a sterol. Their structures were identified as follows:1,3,5-trihydroxyxanthone(ZHT-12), 1,3,5-trihydroxy-4-(3-hydroxy-3-methylbutyl)xanthone(ZHT-13), laxanthone I(ZHT-14), 3,8-dihydroxy-1,4-dimethoxyxanthone(ZHT-18),7-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-1-hydroxyxanthone(ZHT-19), 3-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-1,7-dihydroxy-2-methoxyxanthone(ZHT-20),quercimeritrin(ZHT-1),populnin(ZHT-2), 5-methoxyastragalin(ZHT-3), kaempferol-3,7-O-β-D-diglucoside(ZHT-7), astragalin(ZHT-8), kaempferol-7,4'-O-β-D-diglucoside(ZHT-9),kaempferol(ZHT-16), saxifragin(ZHT-17) and daucosterol(ZHT-15). Among theseknown compounds identified, ZHT-1, ZHT-2, ZHT-7, ZHT-15, ZHT-16 were isolatedfrom this plant for the first time and ZHT-3, ZHT-8, ZHT-9, ZHT-12, ZHT-13,ZHT-14, ZHT-17, ZHT-18, ZHT-19, ZHT-20 were isolated from Cudrania genus forthe first time.A review had been given in this paper on the research advances of chemicalconstituents and pharmacological activities of Cudrania genus.