Flavonoids from Friesodielsia desmoides and their NO production inhibitory

Friesodielsia is a small genus belonging to the Annonaceae family which is distributed in Africa and Asia. Many types of secondary metabolites are produced from this genus including flavonoids, chalcones, alkaloids, benzyl benzoate derivatives and sesquiterpenes [1,2]. Some of these compounds show interesting biological properties, such as antiplasmodial and cytotoxicity activities. F. desmoides (Craib) Steenis is a small tree or shrub which is grown as an ornamental plant in Thailand. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of phytochemical investigations of this plant. The crude extracts of the leaves and twigs of F. desmoides were separated by column chromatography using various stationary phases to yield three new flavan-flavanone hybrids, friesodielsones A-C (1-3), along with 18 known compounds [3]. The structures of compounds 1-3 were elucidated by intensive analysis of spectroscopic data and their absolute configurations were determined by CD spectroscopy and biosynthesis considerations. Two compounds significantly exhibited NO production with the IC₅₀ values of 10.21 ± 0.074 and 7.56 ± 0.087µM, two others were moderate inhibitors (IC₅₀= 28.14 – 37.21µM).

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[3] Meesakul P, Pudhom K, Pyne SG, Laphookhieo S. RSC Adv 2017; 7, 17545 – 17550.