acid-catalyzed epimerization of kobophenol a to carasinol b催化异构kobophenol carasinol b.pdfVIP

Molecules 2008, 13, 938-942 molecules ISSN 1420-3049 © 2008 by MDPI Communication Acid-catalyzed Epimerization of Kobophenol A to Carasinol B Kejun Cheng, Gaolin Liang and Changqi Hu * Department of Chemistry of Natural Drugs, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, P. R. China; E-mails: chengkejun@ (for K. C.), stanfordliang@ (for G. L.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; Tel: (+86)-21 Fax: (+86)-21- E-mail: cqhu@ Received: 13 March 2008; in revised form: 4 April 2008 / Accepted: 4 April 2008 / Published: 19 April 2008 Abstract: The conversion from kobophenol A into carasinol B, two main chemical constituents of Caragana sinica, was confirmed by in vitro acid-catalyzed epimerization. The result provides important information about the biotransformation of kobophenol A in plants and its metabolism in rats. Keywords: Kobophenol A; carasinol B; Caragana sinica. Introduction Caragana sinica (Buc’hoz) Rehd. (Fabaceae) is widely distributed in China. Its dried roots (Chinese name: Jin-que-gen) have been used in China as a herbal medicine for the treatment of asthenia syndrome, vascular hypertension, leukorrhagia, bruises and contused wounds. In a previous study we found that the EtOAc extracts of the roots contained many oligostilbenes that had multi- faceted bioactivities [1]. Kobophenol A (1), a stilbene tetramer, accounts for nearly 20% of the EtOAc extracts. Using an