Alkaloids from Meiogyne virgata (Annonaceae)

The genus Meiogyne (family Annonaceae) consists of about 24 species, widely distributed in Indo-china, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatera, Java, Borneo and the Philippines. Several plants of the genus Meiogyne has been used as a folk medicine in Malaysia. Genus Meiogyne has been reported to contain various types of alkaloids. In this work, we investigated the chemical constituents of the bark of Meiogyne virgata Miq. The phytochemical procedures adopted were acid-base extraction followed by vacuum liquid chromatography, column chromatography and preparative thin layer chromatography. Isolation and purification of alkaloids from the bark of Meiogyne virgata afforded nine alkaloids; four oxoaporphines, liriodenine 1, lanuginosine 2, asimilobine 3 and lysicamine 4; four aporphines, anonaine 5, N-methylanonaine 6, nornuciferine 7 and norushinsunine 8; and one azaanthracene alkaloid, cleistopholine 9. This paper reports presence of alkaloids 2, 4, 6 and 7 for the first time from Meiogyne virgata. The structural elucidation was accomplished by spectroscopic methods such as ID-NMR (¹H, ¹³C, DEPT), 2D-NMR (COSY, HMQC, HMBC), UV, IR and MS and comparison with published data.

Acknowledgement: Universiti Teknologi MARA, Universiti of Malaya, Ministry of Higher Education for research grants and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia for scholarship awarded to Alias, A.

References: 1. Tadic D, Cassels BK, Leboeuf M and Cave A (1987) Phytochemistry 26(2): 537–541

2. Alias A, Hazni H, Mohd Jaafar F, Awang K and Ismail NH (2010) Molecules 15: 4583–4588