[Chemical constituents from flos Sesamum indicum L]

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L. ) belongs to Pedaliaceae, and its dry flowers have been used to cure alopecia, frostbite and constipation as a Traditional Chinese Medicine. Interestingly, the Flos Sesamum indicum L. was usually used to cure verruca vulgaris and verruca plana in folk of China, and showed a pleasant result. Previous chemical investigations of this plant mainly concentrate on its seeds, showed the presence of proteins and fat oils, herein we make a systematic chemical research on the dry flowers of this plant. Column chromatography including silica gel, C18 and Sephadex LH-20 were used to separate the chemical constituents and the structures were determined by chemical and spectroscopic methods. Ten compounds were isolated from the 95% ethanol extract of the plant and elucidated as latifonin (1), momor-cerebroside (2), soya-cerebroside II (3), 1-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(2S, 3S, 4R, 5E,9Z)-2-N-(2'-hydroxytetracosanoyl) 1,3,4-trihydroxy-5,9-octadienine (4), 1-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(2S, 3S, 4R, 8Z)-2-N-(2' R) 2'-hydroxytetracosanoyl) 3,4-dihydroxy-8-octadene (5), (2S, 1" S) -aurantiamide acetate (6), benzyl alcohol-O-(2'-O-beta-D-xylopyranosyl, 3'-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside)-beta-D-glucopyranoside (7), beta-sitosterol (8), daucosterol (9) and D-galacititol (10). Among them, 4 is a new compound, and others were isolated from the flowers of the plant for the first time. Compounds 2 to 4 belong to cerebroside, which is rare to be found in land plants and was proved to possess many bioactivities.