TY - JOUR A1 - Abdissa, Negera A1 - Heydenreich, Matthias A1 - Midiwo, Jacob O. A1 - Ndakala, Albert A1 - Majer, Zsuzsanna A1 - Neumann, Beate A1 - Stammler, Hans-Georg A1 - Sewald, Norbert A1 - Yenesew, Abiy T1 - A xanthone and a phenylanthraquinone from the roots of Bulbine frutescens, and the revision of six seco-anthraquinones into xanthones JF - Phytochemistry letters N2 - Phytochemical investigation of the dichloromethane/methanol (1:1) extract of the roots of Bulbine frutescens led to the isolation of a new xanthone, 8-hydroxy-6-methylxanthone-1-carboxylic acid (1) and a new phenylanthraquinone, 6',8-O-dimethylknipholone (2) along with six known compounds. The structures were elucidated on the basis of NMR and MS spectral data analyses. The structure of compound 1 was confirmed through X-ray crystallography which was then used as a reference to propose the revision of the structures of six seco-anthraquinones into xanthones. The isolated compounds were evaluated for cytotoxicity against human cervix carcinoma KB-3-1 cells with the phenylanthraquinone knipholone being the most active (IC50 = 0.43 mu M). Two semi-synthetic knipholone derivatives, knipholone Mannich base and knipholone-1,3-oxazine, were prepared and tested for cytotoxic activity; both showed moderate activities (IC50 value of 1.89 and 2.50 mu M, respectively). (C) 2014 Phytochemical Society of Europe. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Bulbine frutescens KW - Xanthone KW - seco-Anthraquinone KW - Phenylanthraquinone KW - Cytotoxicity KW - Structure revision Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phytol.2014.04.004 SN - 1874-3900 SN - 1876-7486 VL - 9 SP - 67 EP - 73 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -