Abstract:
Thirty-one phenolic constituents were isolated and purified from the 95% ethanol extract of Sanguisorbae Radix by using various chromatographic techniques, including macroporous resin, silica gel, ODS, Sephadex LH-20 and semi-preparative HPLC. Their structures were elucidated by physicochemical properties, spectroscopic data (MS and NMR) and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra, and identified as 3-methoxyl-2
S, 3
S-epoxyflavanone (
1a), 3-methoxyl-2
R, 3
R-epoxyflavanone (
1b), longifoin B (
2), longifoin C (
3), eriodictyol (
4), naringenin (
5), liquiritigenin (
6), 5, 3ʹ-dihydroxy-7, 4ʹ-dimethoxyflavanone (
7), naringenin-7-
O-
β-
D-glucopyranoside (
8), dihydroquercetin (
9), dihydrokaempferol (
10), (-)-garbanzol (
11), (2
R, 3
R)-4-methoxyl-distylin (
12), kaempferol (
13), quercetin (
14),
α, 4, 2′, 4′-tetrahydroxydihydrochalcone (
15), phloretin (
16), (+)-catechin (
17), ethyl (+)-cyanidan-3-ol-8-carboxylate (
18), phyllocoumarin (
19), methyl 3-methoxy-4, 5-dihydroxybenzoate (
20), 4, 5-dimethoxy-3-hydroxybenzoic acid methyl ester (
21), 3, 4′-di-
O-methylellagic acid (
22), 3, 4, 3′-
O-trimethylellagic acid (
23), 3, 3ʹ, 4ʹ-
O-trimethylellagic acid-4-
O-
β-
D-xyloside (
24), (3
R)-thunberginol C (
25), resveratrol (
26), 1-hydroxypinoresinol (
27), (7
S, 8
S)-3-methoxy-3′, 7-epoxy-8, 4′-oxyneoligna-4, 9, 9′-triol (
28), emodin-8-
O-
β-
D-glucoside (
29), phloracetophenone (
30) and 4-(4′-hydroxyphenyl)-butan-2-one (
31). Among them, compound
1a and
1b is a pair of new flavonoid enantiomers, compounds
2 and
3 are a pair of new epimers, while compounds
4,
5,
6,
9,
10,
13,
16 and
26 were obtained from
S. officinalis for the first time, compounds
7,
8,
27,
30 and
31 were isolated for the first time from the
S. officinalis genus, and compounds
11,
12,
15,
18,
19,
25,
28 and
29 were isolated for the first time from the Rosaceae. The antioxidant activities of compounds
1-24 were evaluated by activating the Nrf2 transcriptional pathway, which were measured by the dual-luciferase reporter gene assay in 293T cells. Compounds
4,
6-
10,
12,
14,
17,
19,
20 and
22-
24 showed significant Nrf2 agonistic effect compared with the control group at 25 μmol·L
-1, which provided reference for the research of their antioxidant activity.