Studies On Chemical Constituents Of The Leaves Of Nauclea Officinalis

Nauclea officinalis Pierre ex Pitard belongs to the genus Nauclea in family Rubiaceae, which is mainly distributed in Hainan, Guangxi, Guangdong and other provinces in the south of China. As a traditional Chinese medicine, N. officinalis is widely used for the treatment of colds, fever, acute tonsillitis, sore throat, conjunctivitis, enteritis, dysentery, eczema, etc. Currently, two kinds of medicines made from N. officinalis extract (tablet and injection) are applied as anti-inflammatory and antibacterial agents in clinic.As part of a program to assess the chemical and biological diversity of medicinal plants in south China, we carried out the chemical investigation on the leaves of N. Officinalis. Twenty-five compounds were isolated by various chromatographic methods from the acetoacetate and n-butanol fractions of its 95% alcoholic extract. On the basis of the spectral and chemical properties, the structures of them were identified as angustine (1), 18,19-dihydroangustine (2), angustoline (3), nauclefine (4), angustidine (5), naucleactonin C (6), naucleofficine D (7), pumiloside (8), strictosamide (9), vincosamide (10), paratunamide C (11), paratunamide D (12), paratunamide A (13), nauclealotide A (14), nauclealotide B (15), nauclealotide C (16), nauclealotide D (17), corosolic acid (18), ursolic acid (19),β-sitosterol (20), daucosterol (21), ethyl caffeate (22), (E)-cinnamamide (23), p-hydroxycinnamic acid (24), and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (25). Among them,6,14-17 are five new compounds,1-2,4-5,11-13, 18-19 and 22-25 are isolated from this plant for the first time.