Phenolic glycosides from Ficus tikoua and their cytotoxic activities

•The rhizomes of Ficus tikoua were phytochemically investigated for the first time.•The structures of the glycosides were characterised including the determination of absolute configurations of the sugars.•This cytotoxicity of the isolates provided a scientific support to the previous pharmacological investigation.•We interpreted the main cytotoxic constituents in this Miao ethnomedicine.

Four new phenolic glycosides, named 2-ethylene-3,5,6-trimethyl-4-phenol-1-O-β-d-xylopyranosyl-(1→6)-β-d-glucopyranoside (1), 3-methoxy-4-O-β-d-apiofuranosyl-(1→2)-β-d-glucopyranosylpropiophenone (2), 3-hydroxy-1-(4-O-β-d-glucopyranosyl-3-methoxyphenyl)propan-1-one (3) and 4-hydroxy-3,5-bis(3′-methyl-2-butenyl)benzoic acid-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (4), were isolated from the ethanol extract of Ficus tikoua, together with six known compounds: 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenol-1-O-β-d-apiofuranosyl-(1→6)-β-d-glucopyranoside (5), 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenol-1-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (6), 3-methoxy-4-O-β-d-apiofuranosyl-(1→6)-β-d-glucopyranosylpropiophenone (7), baihuaqianhuoside (8), 3,5-dimethoxy-4-hydroxybenzoic acid-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (9) and 2-methoxy-4-allylphenyl-1-O-β-d-apiofuranosyl-(1→6)-β-d-glucopyranoside (10). The structures of the four new compounds were elucidated by chemical methods and MS and IR, as well as 1D and 2D NMR analyses. The cytotoxicities of the 10 compounds against HeLa, K562, HL60 and HepG2 cell lines were assessed.

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