[The Chemical Constituents of Uninvestigated Plants in Hiroshima Prefecture].

Recently, the investigation of bioactive constituents from natural products has been performed extensively around the world, yet many plants remain to be studied, even now. The author is especially interested in saponins, which are included in various natural products and Kampo medicines. Based on these study aims, we isolated the chemical constituents of Dianthus japonicus and Clethra barbinervis. The aerial parts of Dianthus japonicus were isolated into nine new (1-9) and seven known oleanane-type triterpene saponins. The structural elucidation of their chemical constituents was examined by several spectroscopic methods. Two new C-glycosyl flavones, two glycosidic derivative of anthranilic acid amides and a maltol glucoside were also isolated from this plant. The isolated compounds were evaluated according to cytotoxic inhibition toward A549 cell lines. Compounds 7-9 showed moderate inhibitory activity. The isolation of a MeOH extract of Clethra barbinervis leaves led to three new triterpene glucosides, i.e. an ursane (ryobunin A, 22), a seco-ursane (ryobunin B, 23) and an oleanane-type glucoside (ryobunin C, 24), along with four known compounds.