Simultaneous densitometric determination of shikonin,acetylshikonin, and β‐acetoxyisovaleryl‐shikonin in ultrasonic‐assisted extracts of four Arnebia species using reversed‐phase thin layer chromatography

A simple, precise, and rapid high‐performance thin‐layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method for the simultaneous quantification of pharmacologically important naphthoquinone shikonin ( 1 ) together with its derivatives acetylshikonin ( 2 ), and β‐acetoxyisovalerylshikonin ( 3 ) in four species of genus Arnebia (A. euchroma, A. guttata, A. benthamii, and A. hispidissima) from the Indian subcontinent has been developed. In addition, the effect of solvents with varying polarity (hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and methanol) for the extraction of these compounds was studied. HPTLC was performed on precoated RP‐18 F_254S TLC plates. For achieving good separation, mobile phase consisting of ACN/methanol/5% formic acid in water (40:02:08 v/v/v) was used. The densitometric determination of shikonin derivatives was carried out at 520 nm in reflection/absorption mode. The method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy, precision, robustness, and specificity. The calibration curves were linear in the range of 100–600 ng for shikonin and acetylshikonin, and 100–1800 ng for β‐acetoxyisovalerylshikonin. Lower LOD obtained for compounds 1 – 3 were 18, 15, and 12 ng, respectively, while the LOQ obtained were 60, 45, and 40 ng, respectively.     

Synthesis and antitubercular activity evaluation of 4-furano-coumarins and 3-furano-chromones

The synthesis of novel 4-furano-coumarins and 3-furano-chromones has been achieved using silver-mediated oxidative C–H/C–H functionalization of 4-ethynylcoumarin/3-ethynylchromone with ethyl acetoacetate in 80%–90% and 82%–90% yields, respectively. The structure of the synthesized compounds was established on the basis of their spectral data analysis and the structure of one of the 4-furano-coumarins has been further confirmed on the basis of its X-ray crystallographic study. All eight synthesized 4-furano-coumarins and 3-furano-chromones exhibited moderate antitubercular activity against sensitive reference strain H37Rv of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.