Chemical compositions and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of five samples of Ligularia lamarum collected in Sichuan Province, China, were analyzed. Fourteen compounds, including four new eremophilanes and one new seco-eremophilane, were isolated and their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic methods.Intra-specific diversity in the chemical composition was found to be higher than previously known. The result of DNA analysis suggested that one of the samples was introgressed, although its chemical composition was typical of L. lamarum. 2
IntroductionLigularia (Asteraceae) species in the Hengduan Mountains of China are highly diversified, thereby providing an opportunity for studying the diversity in secondary metabolites. We have studied the diversity of Ligularia using root chemicals and evolutionally neutral DNA sequences as indices, because the roots of Ligularia contain a variety of terpenoids. To date, we have revealed intra-specific diversity in many species with various modes. For example, many species consisted of several chemotypes (Kuroda et al., , 2014, implying that the generation mechanism of chemical diversity is complex. Furanoeremophilanes have been isolated from most of the major species of Ligularia, and other compounds such as bisabolanes, benzofurans, and phenylpropanoids have also been obtained. L. lamarum (Diels) C. C. Chang is widely distributed in the Hengduan Mountains, including the Yunnan, Sichuan, and Gansu provinces and the Xizang Autonomous Region of China and northwestern Myanmar (Liu and Illarionova, 2011). Taxonomically, the species is closely related to L. subspicata (Bureau and Franch.) Hand.-Mazz.The major morphological difference between L. lamarum and L. subspicata is the presence (L. lamarum) or absence (L. subspicata) of ray florets (Liu and Illarionova, 2011). We previously analyzed L. lamarum and L. subspicata collected in northwestern Yunnan and southwestern Sichuan, and showed that the two species were indistinguishable by our two indices (Saito et al., 2011). Eremophilanes were isolated from all of our collected samples, which were classified into two chemotypes: 1) a furanoeremophilane type and 2) an eremophilan-8-one type. Subspicatins (1β-acyloxyfuranoeremophilanes) are characteristic of the furanoeremophilane type, although not all furanoeremophilane-type samples produce subspicatin(s).Here, we report the results of analyses of L. lamarum samples collected in northern Sichuan Province, which showed further diversity within the furanoeremophilane type. Five new compounds were isolated and their structures were determined.
Results
SamplesFive samples of L. lamarum were collected in northern Sichuan Province (Table 1 and Figure 1): two in Hongyuan County (samples 1 and 2) and three in Dege County (samples 3-5). Samples 1 and 2 were less than 100 m apart.Sample 1 had typical ray florets, whereas sample 2 had very small ray florets. Samples 3 and 4 were collected sympatrically. The leaves of sample 3 were more cordate, whereas those of sample 4 were mor...