Imperatorin is a
furocoumarin
The furanocoumarins, or furocoumarins, are a class of organic chemical compounds produced by a variety of plants. Most of the plant species found to contain furanocoumarins belong to a handful of plant families. The families Apiaceae and Rutacea ...
and a
phytochemical that has been isolated from ''
Urena lobata
''Urena'' is the genus of plants, which grow in various tropical and subtropical areas worldwide. Some view the plant as a weed, but others make use of its fiber for various purposes. The leaves and flowers are also a famine food in Africa. I ...
'' L. (
Malvaceae
Malvaceae, or the mallows, is a family of flowering plants estimated to contain 244 genera with 4225 known species. Well-known members of economic importance include okra, cotton, cacao and durian. There are also some genera containing familiar ...
), ''
Angelica archangelica
''Angelica archangelica'', commonly known as garden angelica, wild celery, and Norwegian angelica, is a biennial plant from the family Apiaceae, a subspecies of which is cultivated for its sweetly scented edible stems and roots. Like several oth ...
'',
''
Angelica dahurica'',
''
Glehnia littoralis'',
''
Saposhnikovia divaricata'',
''
Cnidium monnieri
''Cnidium monnieri'' (L.) Cusson ex Juss., Monnier's snowparsley, is a flowering plant species in the genus '' Cnidium''. Also known as Shechuangzi, Osthole, Jashoshi, Cnidii Fructus (Fruits of Cnidium).
It may be confused with '' Bacopa monnieri ...
'',
''
Incarvillea younghusbandii'',
and ''
Zanthoxylum americanum mill''.
It is biosynthesized from
umbelliferone
Umbelliferone, also known as 7-hydroxycoumarin, hydrangine, skimmetine, and ''beta''-umbelliferone, is a natural product of the coumarin family.
It absorbs ultraviolet light strongly at several wavelengths. There are some indications that this ch ...
, a
coumarin
Coumarin () or 2''H''-chromen-2-one is an aromatic organic chemical compound with formula . Its molecule can be described as a benzene molecule with two adjacent hydrogen atoms replaced by a lactone-like chain , forming a second six-membered h ...
derivative.
Isolation
The procedure for the isolation of imperatorin from ''
Urena lobata
''Urena'' is the genus of plants, which grow in various tropical and subtropical areas worldwide. Some view the plant as a weed, but others make use of its fiber for various purposes. The leaves and flowers are also a famine food in Africa. I ...
'' involves exhaustively
extracting under
reflux
Reflux is a technique involving the condensation of vapors and the return of this condensate to the system from which it originated. It is used in industrial and laboratory distillations. It is also used in chemistry to supply energy to reactions ...
with
benzene
Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each. Because it contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms ...
the air-dried and pulverised roots followed by separation by
column chromatography
Column chromatography in chemistry is a chromatography method used to isolate a single chemical compound from a mixture. Chromatography is able to separate substances based on differential adsorption of compounds to the adsorbent; compounds move th ...
.
[A furocoumarin, Imperatorin isolated from Urena lobata L. (Malvaceae) Keshab Ghosh ]Molbank
''Molbank'' is a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal covering synthetic chemistry and natural product chemistry, established in 1997 as a section of '' Molecules'' and is published by MDPI. After 2001, the journal was published on its ...
2004, M38
Open access (publishing), open access publication
Biochemical activity
Imperatorin was identified from a Bioactive Molecules library in a
high throughput screening
High-throughput screening (HTS) is a method for scientific experimentation especially used in drug discovery and relevant to the fields of biology, materials science and chemistry. Using robotics, data processing/control software, liquid handli ...
experiment for inhibitors of the phosphodiesterase PDE4. It displays a significant preference for
PDE4B
cAMP-specific 3',5'-cyclic phosphodiesterase 4B is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''PDE4B'' gene.
This gene is a member of the type IV, cyclic AMP (cAMP)-specific, cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) family. Cyclic nucleotides ar ...
over
PDE4A
cAMP-specific 3',5'-cyclic phosphodiesterase 4A is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''PDE4A'' gene.
Function
The protein encoded by this gene belongs to the cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) family, and PDE4 subfamily. This P ...
.
See also
*
Psoralen
Psoralen (also called psoralene) is the parent compound in a family of naturally occurring organic compounds known as the linear furanocoumarins. It is structurally related to coumarin by the addition of a fused furan ring, and may be considered ...
, the parent furocoumarin.
References
{{coumarin
Furanocoumarins
Terpeno-phenolic compounds
Phenol ethers