Drug Nauclea Chemical Composition

Nauclea officinalis (de Wild.) Pierre ex Pitard (Rubiaceae) is a folk medicine named as Danmu which was used in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan Provences of China for its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities. Presently, the preparations from Danmu extract, including tablet and injection are clinically used as anti-inflammatory agent in China.Nauclea officinaIis is wildly used in clinical, but the researches about chemical constituents and biological activities were not much showed in reports. In order to search for new chemical constituents of Nauclea officinalis, 14 compounds were isolated from this plant. 10 of them were identified, and they are naucleadanal (1), strictosamide (2), vincosamide (3), pumiloside (4), bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (5),β-sitosterol (6), 3β, 19a, 23, 24- tetrahydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid (7),2β, 3β, 19α, 24- tetrahydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid (8), 3-oxoquinovic acid (9), quinovic acid -3-β-o-α-L-rhamnopyranoside (10), p-hydroxy benzoic acid (11) and vanillic acid (12). 3β, 19α, 23, 24- tetrahydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid (7) and 2β, 3β, 19α, 24- tetrahydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid (8) were new compoundes, and bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (5) and quinovic acid-3-β-o-α-L-rhanmopyranoside were first isolated from Nauclea plants.The NO inhibitory activities on LPS-induced NO production in mouse macrophage RAW 264.7 cells of compounds 7-10 were examined, and were found compound 7 has NO production suppressing activity. The anti-tumor activities of these four compounds were evaluated by MTT assay, and the results indicated that those four compounds showed no cytotoxic effects.