401 Notes BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia) is a prevalent syndrome in old man, about 40% men over 50 years suffered from BPH, but no definitive treatment. Pollens extracts have been reported having remarkable anti-BPH activity 1,2) and pollens have similar constitutes, including alkanes, alkenes, fatty acids, triterpene esters triglycerides, flavones, and so on.3,4) However the anti-BPH active components of pollen remain unknown. In our screening for anti-BPH pollen, Brassica rapa pollen exhibited a notable activity for reducing the volume of prostate in rat model with BPH (pϽ0.01, compared with model). In order to clarify the active principles of Brassica rapa pollen, water, 95% (v/v) ethanol, acetone and SFE-CO 2 (supercritical CO 2 fluid extract), four extracts were screened on anti-BPH activity. The SFE-CO 2 extract exhibited the remarkable bioactivity than other solvent extracts. In the following target screening the SFE-CO 2 extract showed potent 5a-reductase and aromatase inhibiting activity. Under bioactive guidance this extract was chromatographied by gel column and afforded two new phytosterol derivatives (1, 2) and eight known compounds (3-10) (Fig. 1). The structure of new compounds was determined using chemical and spectral methods. This report describes the isolation of the constitutes of Brassica rapa pollen and determination of their structure. We also report their 5a-reductase and aromatase inhibition bioactivities.
Results and DiscussionAir-dried pollen of Brassica rapa L. was extracted with SFE-CO 2 two times. The concentrated extract was fractionated by SiO 2 c.c. (silica gel column chromatography) to afford fractions A-D. Fraction B showed potent 5a-reductase inhibition with inhibitory rate as 48.88Ϯ4.6%, fractions A and B showed potent aromatase inhibition with inhibitory rate as 79.6Ϯ6.9% and 84.0Ϯ0.1%, respectively. So the fractions A and B were successively separated by means of SiO 2 c.c. and HPLC using a reverse phase column to give two new compounds 1 and 2 along with eight known compounds 3-10. The compounds of 24-methylenecholesterol palmitate (3), cycloeucalenol (4), pollinastanol (5), 24-methylenecholesterol (6), linolenic acid (7), palmitic acid (8), monolinolein (9) and monopalmitin (10) Industry; 1320 West Beijing Road, Shanghai 200040, P. R. China. Received October 22, 2008 accepted January 10, 2009; published online January 14, 2009 In the screening of biologically active constituents from Brassica rapa pollen, the supercritical CO 2 fluid extract (SFE-CO 2 ) showed potent 5a a-reductase and aromatase inhibiting activity. The SFE-CO 2 extract was separated by various chromatographic methods to give two new phytosterol derivatives, 24-methylenecholesterol linolenate (1) and cycloeucalenol linolenate (2), as well as eight known compounds, 24-methylenecholesterol palmitate (3), cycloeucalenol (4), pollinastanol (5), 24-methylenecholesterol (6), linolenic acid (7), palmitic acid (8), monolinolein (9) and monopalmitin (10), compounds 7 and 9 showed potent 5a a-reductase in...