Abstract
Chromatographic fractionation of the chloroform extract of Portulaca oleracea L. growing in Egypt afforded a new clerodene diterpene portulene (1), in addition to the known compounds lupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), and daucosterol (4), which were reported for the first time from the title plant. The structures of the isolated compounds were unambiguously established through 1D, 2D, and mass spectral analyses. Co-treatment of CCl4 hepatic injured rats with 70% alcohol extract of P. oleracea significantly restored the hepatic marker enzymes and total bilirubin to near-normal values, which demonstrated hepatoprotective activity. In addition, the P. oleracea extract showed antibacterial and antifungal activities.
Acknowledgements
We thank Mr Mahmoud A. Hafez, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University, Japan, for recording NMR analysis, and Dr Ahmed Abd El-Lateff, Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan for running the HR-ES-IMS analysis.