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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1490335

Identification of antibacterial constituents from Rhododendron simsii Planch with activity-guided method

Provisionally accepted
Yongji Lai Yongji Lai 1Yu -Ting Zhong Yu -Ting Zhong 2Yu Liang Yu Liang 1Wei-Chen Chen Wei-Chen Chen 2Qiuyan Liao Qiuyan Liao 3Mu Li Mu Li 4Pan Han Pan Han 1You-Sheng Cai You-Sheng Cai 2*Fuqian Wang Fuqian Wang 5*
  • 1 Department of Pharmacy, The Central Hospital of Wuhan, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shengli Street, Wuhan, China
  • 2 Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery, Ministry of Education and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
  • 3 Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
  • 4 Department of Medicament, College of Medicine, Tibet University, Lhasa, China
  • 5 Department of Pharmacy, Wuhan No.1 Hospital, Wuhan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Bacterial infections and antibiotic resistance pose significant public health challenges globally, natural products serve as valuable sources for discovering antimicrobial agents. Rhododendron simsii Planch, a folk medicine is used traditionally to treat various inflammatory diseases. Here, we focuses on the investigation of antibacterial metabolites derived from R. simsii Planch, and rhodosimsiin A (1), bearing an 1,5-seco-1,6 and 3,6-epoxy grayanane diterpene skeleton, representing a novel 5/6/7/6/5 pentacyclic ring system, and 3β,16α-dihydroxy-6β-ethoxy-14β-acetoxy-grayan-1(5)-ene-10-one (4) represents the first example of a degradation of C-20 and the carbonylation in C-10 diterpenoid, together with two new grayanane diterpenes (2−3), three new triterpenes (13−15), and known analogues (5−12, 16−30) were isolated from the leaves of R. simsii Planch with bioassay-guided method. Their structures were elucidated by comprehensive spectroscopic analyses and absolute configurations were established by single crystal X-ray diffraction and calculated ECD spectra. Compounds 14, 15, 18, 20, 27, 28 and 30 exhibited potent antibacterial activity with MIC50 of 1.4–24.3 μg/mL against Staphylococcus aureus. The findings of this research indicate that secondary metabolites derived from R. simsii Planch are promising natural antimicrobial candidates.

    Keywords: Rhododendron simsii Planch, diterpenoids, triterpenoids, Absolute configuration, Antibacterial

    Received: 03 Sep 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lai, Zhong, Liang, Chen, Liao, Li, Han, Cai and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    You-Sheng Cai, Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery, Ministry of Education and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
    Fuqian Wang, Department of Pharmacy, Wuhan No.1 Hospital, Wuhan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.