Pterocaryquinone, a novel 1,4-naphthoquinone derivative, was isolated from Pterocarya tonkinesis and its structure was elucidated by spectroscopic methods. Pterocaryquinone is a new dimeric 1,4-naphthoquinone derivative having a pentacyclic skeleton with two five-membered carbon rings, which provided a novel structural skeleton for 1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives and showed apoptosis-inducing activity toward mouse cancer tsFT210 cells.
Pterocarine (1), a new diarylheptanoidal compound, was isolated from Pterocaryatonkinesis (Franch.) Dode. together with a known diarylheptanoid, myricatomentogenin (2), througha bioassay-guided fractionation procedure. The structure of 1 was elucidated as (+)-3', 4''-epoxy-1-(4'-hydroxyphenyl)-7-(3''-hydroxyphenyl)-heptane-3-one by the spectroscopic methods.Pterocarine (1) inhibited the proliferation of tsFT210, HCT-15 and K562 cells with the inhibitionrates of 20.2±2.4, 23.8±2.4 and 50.5±1.2% at 100 μg/mL, respectively. Flow cytometric analysisindicated that 1 could inhibit the cell cycle of tsFT210, HCT-15 and K562 cells at the G0/G1 phaseand could also induce apoptosis in HCT-15 (19%) and K562 (11%) cells.
