Isolation, Characterization, In Vitro and In Silico Assessment of Undescribed Bioactive Constituents from Pterocarpus santalinus L. Heartwood

Abstract

Pterocarpus santalinus heartwood is well acknowledged for its medicinal properties and use in the furniture and handicraft industries. Owing to its medicinal properties, the present investigation aims to isolate and characterize the secondary metabolites from the heartwood. The investigation led to the isolation of one undescribed dehydropterocarpan and eleven known compounds. P. santalinusheartwood is found to be a new source for six compounds. Interestingly, the undescribed dehydropterocarpan is transformed into an artifact, which led us to understand the biosynthetic correlations. The isolated compounds displayed moderate inhibition of α-glucosidase and α-amylase. The enzymatic assay outcome is further complimented with the in silico docking analysis. We have also evaluated the compounds for their drug-likeness properties, which align with the desired characteristics of potential drug candidates.

Figure 1

Structures of compounds 1–12, 5a, and 6a.

Figure 2

Selected HMBC, ¹H-¹H COSY, and NOESY correlations of 5.

Figure 3

α-Glucosidase inhibitory activities of compounds 1–5, 7, and 9 (mean ± SD). One-way ANOVA followed by posthoc Dunnett test was performed to calculate the level of significance in comparison with respective control. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, ****p < 0.0001.

Figure 4

α-Amylase inhibitory activities of compounds 1–9 (mean ± SD). One-way ANOVA followed by posthoc Dunnett test was performed to calculate the level of significance in comparison with respective controls. All the data were found to be significant at p < 0.0001.