earticle

영어

Gynura procumbens (Lour.) Merr. is one of the Gynura species commonly known as ‘Sambung Nyawa’ in Malay and as ‘bai bing cao’ in China, where it is traditionally used to treat various health ailments such as eruptive fevers, rash, kidney disease, migraines, constipation, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and cancer. Recently, pharmacologic studies reported that G. procumbens has anti-oxidant, anti–Herpes simplex virus, anti–hyperglycemic, anti–hyperlipidemic, anti–inflammatory, analgesic, and reduced blood hypertension properties. Today, people in various tropical regions consume an increasing amount of G. procumbens leaves in diet and tea, and research shows that leaves contents are not having any toxic effects. The health benefits of consuming G. procumbens are related to the amount of bioactive compounds found in it, such as flavonoids, tannins, saponins, terpenes, and alkaloids but available literature indicates that little previous studies of secondary metabolites have been done on G. procumbens roots after picking leaves from G. procumbens. In this work, the constituents of the root of G. procumbens were isolated by column chromatography on silica gel, Sephadex LH-20 and recrystallization. Their structures were elucidated by physicochemical properties and spectral analysis. ceramides,N-((5E,8R,11E)-1,8-dihydroxyheptadeca-5,11-dien-1-yl)-2-hydroxypentacosan amide (1), together with three known steroidal compounds, β-sitosterol (1), daucosterol (2), and stigmasterol (3) was isolated. The structure of the new compound was determined based on spectroscopic methods including 1D and 2D NMR and MS spectrometry. The stereochemistry was determined by NOESY experiments.