BCSJ : Vol. 78 (2005) , No. 7 pp.1302-1308

Chemical and Genetic Study of Ligularia tongolensis, Ligularia cymbulifera, and Ligularia atroviolacea in the Hengduan Mountains of China

Ryo Hanai¹⁾, Xun Gong²⁾, Motoo Tori³⁾, Satomi Kondo³⁾, Kanako Otose³⁾, Yasuko Okamoto³⁾, Tadaaki Nishihama⁴⁾, Akihiko Murota⁴⁾, Yuemao Shen²⁾, Sugong Wu²⁾ and Chiaki Kuroda⁵⁾

1) Department of Life Science, Rikkyo University
2) Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science
3) Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University
4) Department of Industrial Chemistry, Meiji University
5) Department of Chemistry, Rikkyo University

(Received December 22, 2004)

Three Ligularia species (L. tongolensis, L. cymbulifera, and L. atroviolacea) were examined with respect to the chemical composition and nucleotide sequence. Furanoeremophilanes were found to be produced in the root of all samples of the three species collected in northwest Yunnan and southwest Sichuan. Eight furanoeremophilanes were identified, two of which were new. Most of the identified furanoeremophilanes were oxygenated at 3, 6, and 15-positions. The nucleotide sequence of the atpB-rbcL intergenic region was found to be essentially the same in the three species. These similarities imply that the three Ligularia species, all belonging to the section Corymbosae, are close to one another. The intra-specific diversity in the two widely distributed species in the Hengduan Mountains area, L. tongolensis and L. cymbulifera, were in contrast. Four out of 19 L. tongolensis samples contained a strongly Ehrlich-positive compound besides a number of positive compounds, and five variants of the atpB-rbcL sequence were found in these samples. In contrast, no variation was observed in 13 L. cymbulifera samples with respect to the furanoeremophilane composition or the atpB-rbcL sequence. The lack of diversity in L. cymbulifera probably resulted from the uniformity of its habitat.