Cynometra cauliflora Linn, a member of the bean family Fabaceae, with vernacular name 'nam-nam', was believed
to be native of Malaysia and cultivated in Indonesia and India[1]. C. cauliflora is a small, much-branched perennial tree growing to 5 m tall. It is a typical underutilized
fruit tree that has the medicinal values in folk traditional medicine in treating
several diseases and cultivated as an ornamental plant in the village. A decoction
of the leaves is traditionally used for treating diabetes and hyperlipidemia, the
fruits for curing the lost of appetite, and the seed oil is used to cure skin diseases.
Previous works have been done on anti and pro-lipase activity which lead to the isolation
of kaempferol-3-O-rhamnoside as an active constituents from the plant leaves [2].
Other study reported their chemical profile with antiacetylcholinesterase, antityrosinase,
antioxidant and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of its leaves extract [3]. This
study focused on investigating the constituents from the twigs part of this plant.
The dried twigs of Cynometra cauliflora L. was macerated in acetone to obtain crude extract and fractionated using vacuum
liquid chromatography (VLC). The isolation and purification of the chosen fractions
by a combination of multiple radial and preparative thin layer (pTLC) chromatographic
techniques afforded four pure compounds which consist of three flavones, luteolin
(1), acatecin (2), 3',4',7-trihydroxyflavone (3) and one flavanone, eriodictyol (4).
The structures of 1 – 4 were elucidated on the basis of 1D NMR and 2D NMR correlations
and comparison with previous literature.
Fig. 1
[1] Seidemann J. World spice plants. Springer: Berlin-Heidelberg, 2005, 131.
[2] Ado MA, Abas F, Mohammed AS, Ghazali HM. Molecules2013, 18:14651 – 14669.
[3] Ado MA, Abas F, Ismail IS, Ghazali HM, Shaari K. J Sci Food Agric: Wiley2014,
1 – 8.
