A Triterpene from Musa errans
Consolacion Y. Ragasa1,2*, Aillen T. Martinez1,
Jennifer Elizabeth Y. Chua1 and John A. Rideout3
1Chemistry Department, De La Salle University, Taft Avenue, Manila
2Center for Natural Sciences and Ecological Research,
De La Salle University, Taft Avenune, Manila
3School of Chemical and Biomedical Sciences,
Central Queensland University, Queensland, Australia
ABSTRACT
The dichloromethane extract of the corm of Musa errans, an endemic form of wild banana afforded 31-norcyclolaudenone (1), squalene, and a mixture of stigmasterol and sitosterol. The structure of 1 was elucidated by extensive 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy. Antimicrobial tests on 1 indicated that it has low activity against C. albicans, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, and T. mentagrophytes; and inactive against B. subtilis, S. aureus, and A. niger.
INTRODUCTION
Musa errans, a form of wild banana is endemic to the Philippines. It is also known as Musa troglodytarium Blanco. The leaves are used as topicals for chest pains. The juice of the corms is used as antituberculars. The sap is vulnerary and it is used in the treatment of gonorrhoea (Quisumbing 1978). A new subspecies of Musa acuminata has been described and named M. acuminata ssp. Errans (Valmayor 2001). There are no reported studies on Musa errans, but a number of studies were reported on its congener Musa acuminata and Musa sapientum. Musa acuminata afforded oxabenzochrysenones (Opitz et al. 2002), 4'-hydroxy-anigorootin, 4, 4'-dihydroxy-anigorootin, 3,3'-bishydroxy anigorufone (Otalvaro et al. 2002), and (S)-(+)-6-methoxy--methyl-2-naphthaleneacetic acid, which is an anti-inflammatory drug (Abad et al. 2000). Musa sapientum afforded 6 triterpenes: cyclomusalenol, cyclomusalenone, 24-methylenecycloartanol, stigmast-7-methylenecycloartanol, stigmast-7-en-3-ol, lanosterol, and -amyrin and eight flavonoids: quercetin and its 3-O-galactoside, 3-O-glucoside, and 3-O-rhamnosyl glucoside (Zeid & Abou 1999), 4-epicycloeucalenone, and 4-epicyclomusalenone (Akihisa et al. 1997), (24S)-14,24-dimethyl-9,19-cyclo-5-cholest-25-en-3-ol, (24S)-24-methyl-25-sterols and their 24-methylene isomers, 4,4-dimethyl-, 4-methyl-, and 4-demethyl sterols, 3-oxo-4-methylsteroids (Akihisa et al. 1986) and 31-norcyclolaudenone (Knapp & Nicholson 1970; Desai et al. 1982). The corm of banana was reported to have the following constituents: -pinene, -pinene, -myrcene, limonene, -cubebene, -copaene, -cedrene, -caryophyllene, and -humulene (Ndiege at al. 1991). The dichloromethane extracts of banana “dwarf Cavendish” afforded by GC-MS fatty acids and sterols as major compounds and aromatic compounds, fatty alcohols, and alkanes as minor compounds (Oliveira et al. 2006).
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