Amorfrutins: A Promising Class of Natural Products that Are Beneficial to Health

Abstract

The incidence of complex noncommunicable diseases has strongly increased over the last several decades in the US, Europe and other parts of the world that have adopted a western lifestyle (M. Ezzati, E. Riboli, Science- 2012, 337, 1482-1487; S. Smyth, A. Heron, Nat. Med.- 2006, 12, 75). Despite considerable investment in the development of new types of drugs, options for the treatment of many common diseases remain inadequate. If current trends prevail, the rising incidence of disorders such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) will soon result in an unsustainable burden on society (World Health Organization Technical Report Series- 2000, 894, i-xii, 1-253). Given the difficulty of treating fully developed complex disorders, new strategies for early intervention and prevention of common diseases are of great interest. Dietary natural products with beneficial effects, such as the recently described antidiabetic and lipid-lowering amorfrutins, could pave the way for efficiently treating and preventing metabolic and other complex diseases (C. Weidner, et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA- 2012, 109, 7257-7262).

Ligands for the Nuclear Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma

“…PPARg ligands display wide structural diversity and, in general, weak affinities (micromolar), but in some cases also higher affinity [19,20]. Structural promiscuity for ligands allows PPARg to sense and respond to varying environmental changes, such as food intake, to support the adaptive expression of metabolic genes [21]. The LBD of PPARg consists of 13 /-helices and a small, four-stranded b-sheet [22].…”

First Total Syntheses of Amorfrutin C and pseudo‐Amorfrutin A

“…Thus, commercially available 2,4,6-trihydroxybenzoic acid (1) was first subjected to a standard acetonization reaction to give acetonide 2 in 75 % yield. The intramolecular hydrogen bond between the C-5 hydroxy group and the adjacent carbonyl group of 2 facilitated selective methylation of the C-7 hydroxy group [11] to give phenol 3 in 91 % yield.…”

“…1 THF and toluene were redistilled from Na/Ph 2 CO. Hexamethylphosphoramide (HMPA) was redistilled from CaO and Na under reduced pressure.…”

“…[1] Amorfrutin A was first extracted from Glycyrrhiza acanthocarpa by Ghisalberti et al [2] Biological studies revealed that amorfrutin A has potent antimicrobial, [3] anticancer, [4] antiinflammatory, [5] and antidiabetes [6] activities. [1] Amorfrutin A was first extracted from Glycyrrhiza acanthocarpa by Ghisalberti et al [2] Biological studies revealed that amorfrutin A has potent antimicrobial, [3] anticancer, [4] antiinflammatory, [5] and antidiabetes [6] activities.…”

Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-Gamma, an Emerging Potential Target to Combat Metabolic Disorder

“…To overcome this problem, new research proposals on pipeline to establish partial, dual PPAR (PPAR α/γ and PPAR δ/γ) [53] and pan-PPAR [54] agonist which may reduce the toxicities by weak specificity toward PPAR-γ without effecting efficacy. Here, the list of natural [12,55,56] and synthetic [44,45,52,57,58] modulators of PPAR-γ given.…”