Constituents from Commonly used Traditional Chinese Medicines

The isolation and structure elucidation of chemical constituents from traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) are still important and attractive, especially for finding lead compounds with a potential use of new drug development. TCMs are used for treatment of diseases from ancient times up to today (thousands of years), and are clinically effective. However, studies have only been carried out for about 20 years, and the active components are seldom identified. Because the chemical components of TCMs and pharmacological responses of a drug are very complex, it is extremely difficult to identify an active compound from a TCM to represent its clinical efficacy. This situation is actually like mechanisms of many diseases, which are not known yet. As a part of a program to assess the chemical and biological diversity of traditional Chinese medicines, we focused on minor components, particularly on those from water extracts of TCMs based on their traditional use of decoctions. Our efforts have led to the characterization of a great numbers of previously unknown constituents, such as homosecoiridoids (1–5) from the flower buds of Lonicera japonica [1], indole alkaloids (6–9) from the root of Isatis indigotica [2,3], and conformational isomers of aconitane diterpenoids (10–15) from the lateral root of Aconitum carmichaelii [4]. In this presentation recent works on these commonly used TCMs will be outlined.

Acknowledgements: Financial support from the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (No. 30825044) is acknowledged. References: [1] Yu Y, Song W, et al. (2011)J Nat Prod, 74: 2151 – 2160. [2] Chen M, Gan L, et al. (2012)J Nat Prod, 75: 1167 – 1176. [3] Chen M, Lin S, et al. (2012) Org Lett, 14: 5668 – 5671. [4] Jiang B, Lin S, et al. (2012)J Nat Prod, 75: 1145 – 1159.