Studies On Chemical Constituents And Biological Activity Of The Twigs Of Homalium Stenophyllum Merr.et Chun

The Flacourtiaceae consists of ca 1000 species distributed between 93-100 genera. Homalium is one of the largest genera with 200 species. Homalium stenophyllum is an understorey tree of about 40 m high and widely distributed in the rainforest of the temperate and subtropical regions. While H. stenophyllum is a unique local medicinal plant with its roots and leaves used as traditional folk medicine in Hainan. There is scant chemical information on the family and still less for the genus. The chemical constituents, pharmacognosy and biological activity research of H. stenophyllum has not been studied. In the course of our previous investigation on bioactive chemical constituents from the crude extracts of the medicinal plants growing in Hainan province of China, it was found that the extract of H. paniculiflorum and H. hainanensis exhibited good biological activity. Based on these, we choose H. stenophyllum to be the object of our study to one or two drug candidate molecules with novel structure, low toxicity, good activity and selectivity will be screened out.Thirty compounds were isolated from the ethanolic extract of H. stenophyllum. They were identified as: syringaresinol(1), Itosid P(2), quercetin(3), kaempferol(4), rutin(5), daidzein(6), 5-(3-formil-4-hydroxifenoxi)-2-hidroxibenzaldehido(7), 2,3-dihydroxy-1-(4-hydroxy-3,5-dimethoxyphenyl)propan-1-one(8), trans-3,4,5-trimethoxyl-cinnamyl alchol(9), 3α-O-trans-coumaroylbetulinicacid(10), pyracrenic acid(11), 3-O-cis-caffeoylbetulinic acid(12), betulinic acid(13), 3-(phenyl)isocoumarin(14), 3-(3’-methylphenyl)isocoumarin(15), O-anisic acid(16), vanillin(17), 3,5-dimethoxy-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde(18), salicyl alcohol(19), 4-ethoxy-3-hydroxymethylphenol(20), trans-pcoumaraldehyde(21), coniferaldehyde(22), trans-p-hydroxy cinamic acid(23), trans-ferulic acid(24), 3,4-dihydroxy-benzoic acid(25), benzoic acid(26), 3-hydroxy-1-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)propan-1-one(27), vomifoliol(28),(-)-d-ihydrovomifoliol(29),(+)-d-ihydrovomifoliol(30). Compounds 1 and 7 were lignans, compound 2 was phenolic glycoside, compounds 3-6 were flavonoids, compounds 8, 9, 16-27 were phenolic acid, compounds 10-13 were triterpenes, compounds 14, 15 were coumarins, 28-30 were vomifoliols. All the compounds were firstly isolated from Homalium genus, except for compounds 4, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 26, 27. And all of the compounds were firstly isolated from this plant.