24-Epibrassinolide from Gypsophila perfoliata

Brassinosteroids are a class of naturally occur­ ring phytohormones with high biological activity found in a wide variety of higher plants (Adam and Petzold, 1994; Adam et al., 1996; Cutler et al., 1991; Sakurai and Fujioka, 1993). Brassinosteroids occur only in trace amount (ngto ^ig/kg plant material). Therefore, their purification has to be monitored by a sensitive bioassay (Wada et al., 1984) and microanalytical techniques must be used for the brassinosteroid analysis (Ikekawa et al., 1984). In continuation of our work on the distribution of brassinosteroids we have investigated seeds of Gypsophila perfoliata belonging to the family Caryophyllaceae. To our knowledge, up to now no occurrence of brassinosteroids has been described for plant species of the Caryophyllaceae family. Gypsophila perfoliata stems originally from Middle-Asia and was not investigated with respect to natural compounds before. The present paper deals with the isolation and identification of bras­ sinosteroids and phytosterols from seeds of this species.