Passiflora
edulis Sims (passion
fruit) seeds are often discarded as byproducts during juice processing.
In fact, the seeds are of considerable commercial value in the food
and cosmetics industry because of their rich polyphenols, especially
piceatannol. In this study, high-speed countercurrent chromatography
(HSCCC) was applied for the separation of stilbene polyphenols from
passion fruit seeds. The n-hexane–ethyl acetate–methanol–water
(1:2:1:2.8, v/v) was found to be the optimum two-phase solvent for
the preparation of two major stilbenes, scirpusin B (8) and piceatannol (9) with purities of 90.2% and 94.8%,
respectively. In addition, a continuous semipreparative HPLC was applied
to further purify the HSCCC fractions containing minor stilbenes and
obtain four new piceatannol derivatives (1–4) along with three known ones (5–7). The structures of these new compounds were determined
using spectroscopic methods, including NMR, high-resolution electrospray
ionization mass spectrometry (HR-ESI-MS), and circular dichroism (CD).
The isolated compounds were evaluated for α-glucosidase inhibitory
activities in vitro. The result suggested that all of them exhibited
more significant activity than acarbose, and passiflorinol B (2) had the strongest activity, with a IC50 value
of 1.7 μM.
Callicarpa longissima has been used as a Yao folk medicine to treat arthritis for years in China, although its active anti-arthritic moieties have not been clarified so far. In this study, two natural phenolic diterpenoids with anti-rheumatoid arthritis (RA) effects, rosmanol and carnosol, isolated from the medicinal plant were reported on for the first time. In type II collagen-induced arthritis DBA/1 mice, both rosmanol (40 mg/kg/d) and carnosol (40 mg/kg/d) alone alleviated the RA symptoms, such as swelling, redness, and synovitis; decreased the arthritis index score; and downregulated the serum pro-inflammatory cytokine levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6), monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1), and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α). Additionally, they blocked the activation of the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)/nuclear factor κB (NF-κB)/c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. Of particular interest was that when they were used in combination (20 mg/kg/d each), the anti-RA effect and inhibitory activity on the TLR4/NF-κB/MAPK pathway were significantly enhanced. The results demonstrated that rosmanol and carnosol synergistically alleviated RA by inhibiting inflammation through regulating the TLR4/NF-κB/MAPK pathway, meaning they have the potential to be developed into novel, safe natural combinations for the treatment of RA.
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