Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 29 (2001) 207}208
Aristolactams from the stem bark of
U
v
aria hamiltonii
Choudhury M. Hasan, Kamrun N. Asha, Mohammad A. Rashid
*
Phytochemical Research Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
Received 22 December 1999; received in revised form 9 March 2000; accepted 22 March 2000
Keywords: Uvaria hamiltonii; Annonaceae; Aristolactams; Chemotaxonomy
1. Subject and source
Uvaria hamiltoniiHook f. and Thoms. is a shrub found in the forests of Sikkim, Bihar and Asam of India and Bangladesh (Hooker, 1872). The stem bark was collected from the hilly areas of Chokoria, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh in October 1998 and was identi"ed by Prof. Salar Khan, Bangladesh National Herbarium, Dhaka, where a voucher specimen has been maintained under the accession number DACB-27943.
2. Previous works
AlthoughUvaria hamiltoniigrowing in Bangladesh has not been studied before, two
#avanones, an aurone, a chalcone and a tetrahydroxanthene have been reported from this plant (Huang et al., 1998).
3. Present study
A total of"ve aristolactams have been isolated from the stem bark ofU. hamiltonii. Four of these were isolated from the dichloromethane extract, while the"fth alkaloid
*Corresponding author. Present address: SAIC Frederick, NCI-Frederick Cancer Research and Devel-opment Center, Bldg. 560, Rm. 32-63B, P.O. Box B, Frederick, Maryland 21702, USA. Tel.:# 1-301-846-1295; fax:#1-301-846-6157.
E-mail address:[email protected] (M.A. Rashid).
was obtained from the methanolic extract. The structures of these alkaloids were established as aristolactam A-III and aristolactam B-II (Crohare et al., 1974), goniopedaline (Talapatra et al., 1988), gri$thinam (Zhang et al., 1999) and piperolac-tam C (Desai et al., 1989) by spectroscopic methods.
4. Chemotaxonomic signi5cance
Except aristolactam B-II, all these aritolactams are reported from the genusUvaria, for the"rst time, while piperolactam C and aristoalctam A-III are the"rst and second record, respectively, from the Annonaceae. So far 14 aristolactams have been reported from the family Annonaceae in,Goniothalamus(Talapatra et al., 1988; Omar et al., 1992; Cao et al., 1998; Zhang et al., 1999),Orophea (Mahmood et al., 1986), Schef-feromitra(Dyke and Gallert, 1978) and Uvaria(Yu et al., 1999). The present study suggests a close relationship betweenUvariaandGoniothalamus. Aristolactams were
"rst reported from the family Aristolochiaceae (Crohare et al., 1974) and since then they have been isolated from plants of other four families, e.g. Annonaceae, Menisper-maceae, Piperaceae and Saururaceae. From a chemotaxonomic point of view, the limited distribution of the aristolactams in these"ve families is quite interesting.
References
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