An overview of the genus Xylocarpus

The article deals with the chemical constituents isolated from all the Indian species of Xylocarpus viz. X. granatum, X. moluccensis, and X. mekongensis. A total of about 70 pure compounds of different classes have been covered. The article describes the biosynthetic pathway of limonoids and sources, bioactivities and chemical and physical constants of the different classes of compounds.     

Terpenoids of plants of theFerula genus

This review, generalizing information up to 1993, is devoted to the chemistry and spectral properties of natural carotane compounds.Institute of the Chemistry of Plant Substances, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, fax (3712) 89 14 75. Translated from Khimiya Prirodnykh Soedinenii, No. 6, pp. 767–780, November-December, 1995. Original article submitted July 4, 1994.     

Specific differentiation in Vicia genus by means of capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis has been applied to the discrimination of 13 Vicia species, belonging to four sections of Vicia genus. The studied species necessitate of plant growing tests or DNA molecular markers to be distinguished being their seeds morphologically very similar. Alcoholic/saline extracts from dry cotyledons were separated in uncoated fused-silica capillary with iminodiacetic acid isolectric buffer containing hydroxypropylmethylcellulose and acetonitrile. The low intra-specific variation observed for 11 species, suggests that this approach is suitable to carry out species discrimination. Species-specific peaks were identified for V. articulata, V. atropurpurea, V. bithynica, V. benghalensis, V. disperma, V. ervilia, V. monantha, V. sativa and V. villosa. Conversely, V. lutea, V. melanops and V. peregrina, showing very similar electrophoregrams, require other methodological approaches to be discriminated. The discussed CE method appears to have a potential to be regarded as an alternative tool to identify some Vicia species being far less expensive and time consuming than plant growing tests and DNA molecular markers.     

Chromatographic investigations of furocoumarins fromHeracleum genus fruits

Summary Furocoumarins from extracts ofHeracleum genus fruits were separated using normal and reversed phase TLC and HPLC and isolated in the milligram scale using overloaded systems of column chromatography. Binary or ternary solvents containing a polar modifier (methanol, diisopropyl ether or acetonitrile) were used as the mobile phases. Preliminary report on this work was presented at the 47th International Congress of Pharmaceutical Sciences of F.I.P. in Amsterdam. The Netherlands, 30 August–5 September 1987.