Study on chemical constituents of the ethyl acetate extract of Elephantopus mollis

Abstract

Elephantopus mollis, family Asteraceae, is a herbaceous perennial plant with the main component of sesquiterpene lactones. In the Elephantopus mollis, there are other chemical components such as triterpenoids, steroids, flavonoids, and simple phenolic compounds. Since this plant was discovered and studied until now, there have been many studies on the biological activity of Elephantopus mollis, in which the cytotoxic activity was noted to be superior to many cell lines such as breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7; T-47D), lung cancer cell lines (A549; NCI-H2), leukemia cell line (HL-60), lymphoma cell line (RAJI)… The cytotoxic studies were performed mainly on petroleum ether, ethyl acetate, methanol, and water extracts. In Vietnam, Elephantopus mollis distributed mainly in the central highlands and are used in the traditional medicine to treat toxic boils, skin diseases, acute lymphadenitis, acute jaundice… In this paper, six compounds were isolated from an ethyl acetate extract of the whole plant, including two known sesquiterpene lactones, molephantinin (1), 2-deethoxy-2β-methoxyphantomolin (2) and four other compounds including a simple phenolic, methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate (3); a triterpene, epifridelanol (4), a phytosterol, stigmasterol (5), and a biflavonoid, lophirone L (6). Among them, compound 6 was found for the first time in Elephantopus mollis species. The chemical structure of the isolated compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis 1H- NMR, 13C-NMR, HSQC, HMBC and HR-ESI-MS, combining with the comparison of their NMR data with those published in the literature.