Three new flavonol glycosides, hippophaeosides A-C (1-3), together with 27 known constituents, were isolated from Hippophae rhamnoides L. leaves. Their structures were determined by spectroscopic analyses. Their inhibitory activities on 3T3-L1 preadipocyte differentiation and triglyceride accumulation in maturing adipocytes, and nitric oxide production in RAW264.7 cells were examined.Key words Hippophae rhamnoides; flavonol glycoside; triterpenoid; adipocyte; macrophage Hippophae rhamnoides L. (Elaeagnaceae), known as "sea buckthorn," is a deciduous shrub distributed throughout Asia and Europe. The fruit has been used as a traditional medicine for the treatment of cough indigestion and blood stasis in China.1) Investigations of H. rhamnoides have yielded flavonols, 2-4) triterpenoids, 5,6) and tannins.3) The leaf has been reported to have anti-inflammatory, 7) antioxidant, 4) anti-obesity, 8,9) and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities.
4)In our previous study, we investigated anti-obesity and antiinflammatory compounds that not only inhibit triglyceride (TG) accumulation by 3T3-L1 adipocytes but also inhibit the secretion of nitric oxide (NO) from RAW264.7 cells. In that study, several crude drugs were examined. [10][11][12] In the present study, the 80% methanol extract of the leaves of H. rhamnoides L. and the chloroform-and ethyl acetatesoluble portions of the extract were observed to inhibit the TG accumulation in 3T3-L1 cells, and inhibit NO production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) activated macrophages. Furthermore, an attempt to identify the bioactive compounds present in this plant led to the isolation of three new flavonol glycosides, Hippophaeosides A (1), B (2), and C (3), along with 27 known constituents.
Results and DiscussionThe leaves of H. rhamnoides L. were extracted with 80% aqueous methanol, followed by evaporation of the solvent under reduced pressure from the combined extract to give the 80% methanol extract. The extract [TG and NO inhibitory activity: 35% and 63%, respectively (30 µg/mL) [42, 15% (30 µg/mL)]. We focused our efforts on investigating the chemical constituents of the chloroform-and ethyl acetate-soluble fractions. The ethyl acetate layer was separated by Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography to yield four fractions from which 22 compounds including three new compounds 1-3 were isolated. Eight compounds were isolated from the chloroform layer. Compounds 4-30 were identified by detailed comparisons of their