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Review
. 2019 Jan 30;9(8):4113-4130.
doi: 10.1039/c8ra09409h.

Overview of sesquiterpenes and chromones of agarwood originating from four main species of the genus Aquilaria

Mei Gao  1 , Xiaomin Han  2 , Ying Sun  1 , Hongjiang Chen  3 , Yun Yang  4 , Yangyang Liu  4 , Hui Meng  4 , Zhihui Gao  1 , Yanhong Xu  1 , Zheng Zhang  1 , Jianping Han  1
Affiliations
Review

Overview of sesquiterpenes and chromones of agarwood originating from four main species of the genus Aquilaria

Mei Gao et al. RSC Adv. .

Abstract

The main chemical constituents of agarwood are sesquiterpenes and chromones, which can be divided into different categories depending on their molecular skeletons. Agarwoods are obtained from different plant species: Aquilaria sinensis, A. malaccensis, A. crassna, and A. subintegra. In this review, we systematically summarized the structures of 367 compounds isolated from agarwoods originating from four main species. We structurally classified all the components into 11 different types and summarized the number of compounds in each type. Different and identical components were obtained by enumerating the chemical compositions of the different species. Knowledge regarding the chemical constituents of agarwoods of different species will aid understanding of the chemical compositions of agarwoods and will subsequently identify similar compounds that can serve as standards for quality control to provide a reference for future studies on agarwoods from different species and to increase their usefulness.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Scheme 1
Scheme 1. Different types of sesquiterpenes in agarwood.
Scheme 2
Scheme 2. Different types of chromone derivatives in agarwood.
Fig. 1
Fig. 1. (a) The number of different types of sesquiterpenes in agarwood; (b) the number of different types of chromone derivatives in agarwood ((a) 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones; (b) 5,6,7,8-tetrahydro-2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones; (c) others).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. The numbers of sesquiterpenes and chromone derivatives in different species of agarwood.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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