Swainsonine Chemical Composition Of Roots And Stems

Sphaerophysa salsula(Pall.)DC, which belongs to Leuguminosae family, is a plant widely distributed in saline lands in the northwest of China. The whole plant, root and fruit can be used for medicine. It possesses the function of recovering kidney, diuresis, detumescence and arrest seminal discharge. There are also reports for its decreasing blood pressure, stanching and contracting uterus activities.From the 95% ethanol extract of the roots and stems of Spaerophysa salsula (Pall.) DC, 14 compounds have been isolated by solvents extraction, repeated silica gel and Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography. On the basis of physico-chemical properties and spectroscopic data analysis, their structures have been identified as: 4', 7-dihydroxy-3'-methoxyisoflavone (1), formononetin (2), 4', 7-dihydroxy-3'-methoxy isoflavone-7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (3), salicylic acid (4), vanilic acid (5), 2-methyl benzoic acid (6), isorhamnetin-3-O-[6"-(3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaroyl)-β-D-glucopyranoside] (7), quercitrin (8), n-butyl-O-β-D-fructopyranoside (9), nicotinic acid (10), succinic acid (11), erythritol (12),D-mannitol (13). uridine (14). Among them, compounds 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 were isolated from this genus for the first time and compound 7 is a new one.