The fungus Pleurocybella porrigens (Japanese name: Sugihiratake), a basidiomycete of the Tricholomataceae family, is a small, flat, white mushroom. This edible mushroom grows during the late summer and autumn and is native to all districts of Japan including the Tohoku and Hokuriku areas. In the autumn of 2004, several perplexing acute encephalopathy cases were diagnosed in the Tohoku and Hokuriku areas, and the intake of this mushroom was identified as one of the common factors in these cases.2-6) As a first step to clarify the relationship between the acute encephalopathy cases and this mushroom, we conducted an investigation to determine the chemical constituents of P. porrigens. 7) In the course of this work, we isolated and characterized three novel conjugated long-chain fatty acids (compounds 1-3) together with nine known compounds [(8E,10E)-7,12-dioxo-8,10-octadecadienoic acid (ostopanic acid) (4), 8,9) tryptophan, adenine, trans-cinnamic acid, ergosterol, 10) triolein, 11) a-and beleostearic acids, 12,13) and methyl a-eleostearate 14) ] from aqueous methanol extract of P. porrigens. This paper deals with the structural elucidation of these new compounds based on spectroscopic methods.
Results and DiscussionA 50% aqueous methanol extract of P. porrigens was fractionated by chromatography on Diaion HP-20 with aqueous MeOH, then each fraction showing similar patterns on HPLC or TLC was combined. Further purification was performed by a combination of chromatography over MCI-gel CHP 20P with a step-wise gradient elution using aqueous MeOH, preparative HPLC, and preparative TLC to afford three novel compounds (1-3) along with nine known constituents.Compound 1 These spectral features along with four unsaturation degrees in the molecular formula and UV data suggested 1 to be a C18 unsaturated oxo fatty acid with linear structure. The 1 H-13 C heteronuclear multiple-bond connectivity (HMBC) spectrum showed long-range correlations as follows: H-2 and C-1, 3, 4; H-8 and C-6, 7, 9; H-10 and C-9, 12; H-11 and C-9, 10, 13; H-12 and C-11, 14; H-13 and C-11, 14; H-14 and C-12; H-15 and C-13, 14, 16, 17; and H-18 and C-16, 17, indicating the locations of a carbonyl carbon at C-9 and a tertiary carbon at C-14. Although the proposed structure (1) has an asymmetric carbon at C-14, 1 was regarded as a racemate Three novel conjugated long-chain fatty acids (1-3) were obtained from aqueous methanol extracts of Pleurocybella porrigens together with nine known constituents including (8E,10E)-7,12-dioxo-8,10-octadecadienoic acid (ostopanic acid) (4). The structures of the new fatty acids were characterized as (14RS)-(10E,12E)-14-hydroxy-9-oxo-10,12-octadecadienoic acid (1), (12RS)-(8E,10E)-12-hydroxy-7-oxo-8,10-octadecadienoic acid (2), and (10E,12E)-9,14-dioxo-10,12-octadecadienoic acid (3) by spectroscopic methods.