Records of Natural Products

Lignans, such as podophyllotoxin, schisandrin, and silymarin, are known for their notable biological activities. In our study, a new lignan, named melaleucin D (1), was isolated from the leaves and stems of the plant Melaleuca bracteata F. Muell. The planar structure was determined by combining 1H NMR/13C NMR/ COSY/HSQC/HMBC spectra and HRESIMS data. The absolute configuration was established by comparing the experimental circular dichroism (CD) data with the calculated theoretical ECD data. Compound 1 contained an unusual dioxane moiety. The antibacterial assay revealed that compound 1 did not exhibit a zone of inhibition against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 and Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 at a concentration of 256 mg/mL.

Aframomum belongs to the ginger family Zingiberaceae, a group of perennial herbaceous plants found mainly in tropical Africa, including many countries in West, Central and East Africa. Aframomum spp has a long history of medicinal use in African traditional medicine. It has been used to treat a variety of ailments such as digestive disorders (for relief of indigestion, stomach pains, etc.), respiratory disorders (to alleviate symptoms of coughs and colds), and inflammatory diseases. However, there is a lack of current literature summarizing this area. Therefore, the present review aims to comprehensively organize the botanical, phytochemical, and pharmacological studies of Aframomum spp to provide reference studies for further discovery of its therapeutic value. For this purpose, relevant information on Aframomum spp was searched from scientific databases including Science Direct, Web of Science, Google Scholar, PubMed. Modern studies have shown that Aframomum spp contains a variety of chemical constituents containing terpenoids, diarylheptanoids, flavonoids, and lignans, which have various pharmacological effects such as antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic. The phytoconstituents and various pharmacological activities of Aframomum spp. reported in this paper can provide valuable references for further studies.

A new azaphilone derivative, namely aspergiphilone A (1), along with seven known compounds including lunatinin (2), (2S,3S)-5,6-dihydroxy-2,6-dimethyl-3-(2-oxopentyl)-2-cyclohexen-1-one (3), sterigmatocystin (4), glyantrypine (5), cottoquinazoline A (6), preechinulin (7), and (-)-neoechinulin (8), was obtained from co-cultures of two marine-derived fungi, Aspergillus versicolor IMB17-055 and A. chevalieri IMB18-208. Their structures were elucidated through MS, 1D, and 2D NMR analyses, combined with ECD calculations. Their inhibitory activity against mycobacterial CYP121, as well as their antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities, has been reported.

During the chemical studies on the target fungus Penicillium oxalicum 2021CDF-3, four compounds (1−4) were isolated and characterized from the culture of the solid rice medium. Their chemical structures were definitely determined by using HRESIMS and NMR experiments. Among them, compound 1 was reported as a new vetivane-type sesquiterpenoid bearing a tricyclic 7/5/5 framework. Compounds 1−4 were measured for their cytotoxicities against A549, MCF7, MKN-45, and HCT 116 cells. Compounds 2 and 4 displayed considerable inhibitory activity on the gastric cancer MKN-45 cell with IC50 values of 8.0 ± 0.5 and 11.9 ± 0.6 μM, respectively.