Jayson Wau, David Timi, Anthony Harakuwe, Bruce Bowden, Cherie Motti, Harry Sakulas and Rag Gubag- Sipou
Latex of F. botryocarpa fruit is applied on skin infections in Papua New Guinea ethnotherapeutic practices. Systematic bioassay guided separation and isolation of subsequent fractions of latex extracts resulted in three bioactive fractions. Structures were determined by physical (M.pt and Rf values) and spectroscopic (1D-1H NMR, 2D-HSQC NMR, 2D-HMBC NMR) and MS ESI-POS. The two methylene protons (2H-1) and 2H-3) resonate as triplets at δ 3.59 and δ 4.99 respectively. Electron dense δ 4.99 (2H-3) on (C-3) depicts the strong electron withdrawing component, quaternary nitrogen (=N=+). Protons resonating at δ 3.88 and δ3.89 are singlets depicting two methoxy groups. Both δ 3.88 and δ 3.89 are para-aryls substituents. All isolates, (1), (2) and (3) were identified to be ficuseptine. 2D-NMR and MS of (2) found it to be ficuseptine chloride “2, 3-dihydro-6, 8-bis (4-methoxyphenyl)-1,2,3-trihydroindolizidinium chloride”. The counter ions were not established and provide promising lead for further investigation.