Cancer prevention is one of the most urgent problems in the field of public health worldwide. The methanol extract of watercress ( Nasturtium officinale) inhibits 12-O-tetradecaonoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-induced ear edema in mice. The extract also exhibits marked antitumor activity in in vivo two-stage carcinogenesis test in mice using 7,12-dimethylbenz[α]anthracene as an initiator and TPA as a promoter. From the active fraction of the methanol extract, sitosterol 3-O-glucopyranoside (1) was isolated and identified. This compound was evaluated for its inhibitory effects on TPA-induced inflammation (1 µg/ear) in mice, and had a 50% inhibitory dose of 299 nmol/ear. These results indicate that watercress extracts are useful in cancer prevention.

100 ?g/mL, respectively. Conclusion Compounds Ⅰ-Ⅴ are isolated from B. parviflora for the first time, Ⅲ is a new phenolic glucoside named as bidenphenol glucoside. Compounds Ⅰ-Ⅴ exhibit the activities of anti-histamine release from rat mast cell stimulated by antigen-antibody reaction.

Ten isoflavonoids were isolated from the heartwoods of Caragana changduensis Lion f. by means of various column chromatographic techniques. Based on the detailed spectral data analysis (MS and NMR), as well as comparison with the literatures, their chemical structures were determined as 7,2'-dihydroxy-8,4'-dimethoxyisoflavone (1), 4'-hydroxy-7,3'-dimethoxyisoflavone (2), 5, 7, 4'-trihydroxy-2',5'-dimethoxyisoflavone (3), prunetin (4), afrormosin (5), odoratin (6), genistein (7), texasin (8), pratensein (9), and 6,7,3'-trihydroxy-4'-methoxyisoflavone (10). Among them, compounds 1-3 and 9-10 were isolated from the Caragana genus for the first time. All the compounds were obtained from this species for the first time. In the preliminary assays, compounds 1, 2, 6, and 7 possessed significant inhibitory effects on NO production, with IC50 values of 48.12, 25.32, 62.71, 43.59 μmol x L(-1), respectively.
Animals ; Caragana ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Isoflavones ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Macrophages ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Mice ; Molecular Structure ; Nitric Oxide ; antagonists & inhibitors ; metabolism ; RAW 264.7 Cells