Chem. Pharm. Bull., 53(6),607-610, June 2005

Regular Articles

Immunosuppressive Sesquiterpenes from Tripterygium wilfordii

Xiaodong WANG,^a Wenyuan GAO,^a Zhi YAO,^b Shaoyu ZHANG,^c Yanwen ZHANG,^c Yoshihisa TAKAISHI,^d and Hongquan DUAN^*,c

^a The College of Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology, Tianjin University; Tianjin 300072, China: ^b Department of Immunology, Tianjin Medical University; Tianjin 300070, China: ^c The School of Pharmacy, Tianjin Medical University; Tianjin 300070, China: and ^d Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokushima; 1-78 Shomachi, Tokushima 770-8505, Japan. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: duanhq@tijmu.edu.cn

Five new sesquiterpenes, 1β-furanoyl-2β,3α,7α,8β,11-pentaacetoxy-4α,5α-dihydroxy-dihydroagarofuran (1), 1β,2β,3α,5α,7β,8β,11-heptaacetoxy-dihydroagarofuran (2), 1β-furanoyl-2β,3α,7α,8β,11-pentaacetoxy-5α-hydroxy-dihydroagarofuran (3), 1β,7β,8α-triacetoxy-2β-furanoyl-4α-hydroxy-11-isobutyryloxy-dihydroagarofuran (4), and 1β-nicotinoyl-2β,5α,7β-triacetoxy-4α-hydroxy-11-isobutyryloxy-8α-furanoyl-dihydroagarofuran (5), were isolated from the xylem of Tripterygium wilfordii, together with a known compound (6). Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic studies. Compounds 2-5 showed significant immunosuppressive activities.

Key words Tripterygium wilfordii; xylem; sesquiterpene; immunosuppressive activity