No abstract

Plant species of the genus Cecropia (Urticaceae) are used as traditional medicine in Latin-America, and are commercially available as food supplements. The aim of this study was to characterize and compare the phytochemical constituents of four Cecropia species collected in Panama. The structures of 11 compounds isolated from leaves of C. obtusifolia were elucidated based on high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic analysis; the polyphenolic constituents of leaves of all four Cecropia species and commercial products were characterized using high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection-quadrupole time of flight-tandem high resolution mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-QTOF). Forty-seven compounds were fully identified or tentatively characterized. Thirty-nine of these have not been previously reported for the species under investigation. Multivariate analysis revelead that C. obtusifolia and C. insignis are the most related species, while C. hispidissima is the most segregated one. Considering the importance of the description of novel chemical entities and the increasing interest and use of natural products, this study may be of great help for chemotaxonomic purposes, the interpretation of medicinal properties and for quality assessment of herbal supplements containing Cecropia leaves.

No abstract

Two new cyclic depsipeptides, 5-OHKF (1) and norKA (2), together with the known congeners kahalalide F (3) and isokahalalide F ((4S)- methylhexanoic kahalalide F) (4) were isolated from the green alga Bryopsis pennata. The structures of the new compounds were established on the basis of extensive 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic analysis and mass spectrometric (ESIMS) data. The absolute configuration of each amino acid of 5-OHKF (1) and norKA (2) was determined by chemical degradation and Marfey’s analysis. The biological activities of these two compounds are also reported.