Flavonoids from artificially induced dragon's blood of Dracaena cambodiana.

Dragon's blood is a rare traditional medicine used in many countries. Because of its various therapeutic uses, its requirement is increasing dramatically, while formation of dragon's blood need at least several years, so many researchers tried to induce the formation of dragon's blood artificially, but the chemical constituents of artificially induced dragon's blood were rarely studied. In our research, twenty constituents, including three new ones, were isolated from artificially induced dragon's blood of Dracaena cambodiana, five of which are the same with those from natural dragon's blood. In addition, six compounds exhibited cytotoxic activities, and eleven compounds demonstrated antibacterial activities. Artificially induced dragon's blood is expected to be the substituent of natural dragon's blood.

[Antibacterial components from artificially induced dragon's blood of Dracaena cambodiana].

Ten compounds were isolated from the artificially induced dragon's blood of Dracaena cambodiana by various column chromatographies on silica and sephadex LH-20 gel. Based on spectral analysis of NMR and MS, their structures were identified as 3, 4-dihydroxyallylbenzene (1), 3', 4', 5'-trimethoxycinnamylalcohol (2), pinoresinol (3), (2R)-7, 4'-dihydroxy-8-methylflavane (4), (2R)-7,4'-dihydroxy-5-methoxy-8-methylflavane(5),(2S)-7,3'-dihydroxy-4'-methoxy-8-methylflavane(6) ,(2S)-4',7-dihydroxy-6, 8-dimethylflavane(7), 4,2',4'-trihydroxychalcone(8), 4,4'-dihydroxy-2-methoxydihydrochalcon(9) and Cambodianin E (10). Antibacterial activity assay showed that compounds 1, 4 and 10 have inhibitory effect on Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cuben, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum and Ralstonia solanacearum.