Bioactivity of some compounds isolated from the heartwood of Dalbergia oliveri Gamble ex Prain

Abstract

Several species of the genus Dalbergia have been used for a long time in Vietnam as traditional medicine, there was a few papers concerning biology and taxonomy of Dalbergia in Vietnam. In our study, first time ten bioactive compounds isolated from the heartwood of Dalbergia oliveri were evaluated. The results showed that from the cytotoxic assay, two compounds numbered as (9) (6aR,11aR)-3,8-dihydroxy-9-methoxypterocarpan and numbered as (10) 3hydroxy-9 methoxyterocarpan exhibited strong cytotoxic activities with the IC₅₀ values ranging from 3.76 mg/ml to 7.09 mg/ml. The compound numbered as (9) (6aR,11aR)-3,8-dihydroxy-9-methoxypterocarpan also showed a mild antioxidative activity with the ED₅₀ were 31.46 mg/ml. None of the ten tested compounds were evaluated for the anti-microbiological activity in vitro.