Chemical Constituents from Centella erecta (L.f.) Fern.

Centella or Indian Pennywort, Centella asiatica (L.) Urb. belongs to the family Apiaceae. It has been widely cultivated in China, Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka and Africa as green vegetable and medicinal herb. It is valued in Indian system of medicine for improving memory and for the treatment of nerve disorders and skin diseases. The plant and its extract were incorporated into the Indian Pharmacopeia for the treatment of inflammation and epidermal wound healing. C. asiatica is becoming a popular ingredient in various herbal products. However, Centella erecta (L.f.) Fern. is very closely related species to C. asiatica that is commonly found in the southern US and is easily confused with each other. Although C. asiatica has been thoroughly investigated, no compressive chemical studies were done on C. erecta [1,2]. A new triterpene (2α,3β, 4α)-23-(sulphonyl)-2,3-dihydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid O-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 4)-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-β-D-glucopyranosyl ester (1) together with eleven known compounds including asiatic acid (2), madecassic acid (3), asiaticoside (4), mdecassoside (5), (2α,3β, 6β)-trihydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid O-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 4)-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-β-D-glucopyranosyl ester (6), Betulabuside A (7), 3-oxo-α-ionyl-9-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (8), vomifoliol-9-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (roseoside) (9), 1,8-heptadecadiene-4,6-diyne-3,10-diol (10), (2S)-1-O-stearoyl-2-O-stearoyl-3-O-[α-D-galacto-pyranosyl-(1″6ʹ)-β-D-galactopyranosyl] glycerol (11),(2S)-1-O-linolenyl-2-O-linolenyl-3-O-[α-D-galactopyranosyl-(1″6ʹ)-β-D-galacto pyranosyl]glycerol (12) (Fig. 1) were isolated from the whole plant of Centella erecta and their structures were elucidated using ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, HSQC, HMBC, COSY and HRMS as well as comparison with reported data. Acknowledgements: This research is funded in part by The United States Department of Agriculture Specific Cooperative Research Agreement Number 58-6408-6-067 and the FDA/CFSAN grant entitled Science Based Authentication of Dietary Supplements Number 2 U01 FD 002071-07. The Authors would like to thank Dr. Vaishali Joshi for authenticating the plant material. References: [1] Mabberley DJ, (1997), The Plant Book: A portable dictionary of the higher plants. Cambridge University Press. [2] Shakir JS, et al. Nat. Prod. Radiance 6(2): p.158–170, (2007).