Saponins from liliaceae

Mimaki Y, Sashida Y (1996) Steroidal Saponins from the Liliaceae Plants and Their Biological Activities. Adv Exp Med Biol 404 101... 

The inhibitory activity exhibited by many spirostane and furostane saponins from Liliaceae and Agavaceae on cAMP phosphodiesterase was assayed as a primary screening test to identify new compounds with... 

Since cancer chemotherapeutics were reported to exert part of their pharmacological effect by triggering apoptotic cell death, the search for apoptosis-inducing compounds in tumor cells have become useful for the development of anticancer drugs. There were few reports on the apoptotic activity of saponins, except those on ginsenosides. We will present here recent results obtained with other saponins from Liliaceae, Mimosaceae, Araliaceae, and Caryophyllaceae. 

Steroidal saponins (those based on C27-steroidal sapogenins) are found in a large number of plant families, but are particularly common in the monocotyledonous families Agavaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Dioscoreaceae, and Liliaceae (Dahlgren et al., 1981). The vast majority of steroidal saponins are based on furostan- or spirostan-type precursors (Hostettman et al., 1991). A series of steroidal saponins from... 

Diosgenin was accumulated in various plants mostly in Family Dioscoreae, Zingeberaceae, and Liliaceae as glycoside. It was reported by Mahato et al. [1], that 63 kinds of saponins have diosgenin as its aglycon. Diosgenin was produced commercially mosdy from rhizomes of Dioscorea spp. (5-8%) and Costus spp. (1-3%) [2]. 

Saponins, such as asparanin B (9) (Fig. 24.1) from the seed of Asparagus adescendens (Liliaceae), are active against the nematode Meloidogyne incognita at concentrations as low as 200 p,g/L (Chitwood, 1992). 

The scientific name of Chinese chives is Allium tuberosum Rottl. (Liliaceae). It is known as Jiucai in China and Nira in Japan. It is a perennial plant and both the leaves and the inflorescences are edible. It has also been used as an herbal medicine for many diseases. According to the dictionary of Chinese medicines, the leaves have been used for the treatment of abdominal pain, diarrhea, hematemesis, snakebite and asthma while the seeds are used as a tonic and aphrodisiac. In the present study, 39 compounds were isolated and identified from the ethanol extract of the seeds of Allium tuberosum. Among them, 23 are new compounds and include spirostanol saponins, furostanol saponins, cholesterol saponins and alkaloids. Their structures were identified by a combination of ESIMS, ID, and 2D-NMR (COSY, TOCSY, ROSEY, HMQC, and HMBC). The antitumor activities of some of these compounds will be discussed. 

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