The volatile components of the leaves of five Bursera species, B. copallifera, B. exselsa, B. mirandae, B. ruticola and B. fagaroides var. purpusii were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Germacrene D was one of the predominant components (15.1-56.2%) of all of these species. Germacrene D has also been found in other Bursera species and some species of Commiphora, the s...

MYRRHA (Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) is an accelerator driven system, currently under development at SCK CEN in Mol, Belgium. This nuclear system will use liquid Lead-Bismuth eutectic alloy as a spallation target fast neutron production and coolant. The ideal structural material metal cooled reactor should be unsusceptible to both embrittlement corrosion, wh...

Phytochemical investigation of the whole plant of Commiphora mukul Engl. resulted in the isolation of two lignans, epiexcelsin (1) and 5′-demethoxyepiexcelsin (2) which are reported for the first time from this species. The structure elucidation of the isolated compounds was based on 1D and 2DNMR analysis and by the comparison with the published data. The lignans 1 and 2 showed significant inhi...

Alcohollc extract of C. mulnd resin (guggal) and one pure steroid isolated from this extract, when administered orally at a dose of 25-50 mgjkg body weight, reduced the serum cholesterol level in normal and triton-induced byperUpemlc rats and cholesterol-fed byperlipemIc rabbits. Both guggal extract and the steroid showed only slight inhibition of cholesterol biosynthesIs 85 compared to p_chlor...

Fractionation of a steam distilled residue of Commiphora confusa resin has yielded four novel dammarane triterpenes characterised as (20S)-3beta-acetoxy-12beta,16beta-trihydroxydammar-24-ene, (20S)-12beta,16beta-trihydroxydammar-24-ene-3beta-O-beta-glucopyranoside, (20S)-3beta-acetoxy-12beta,16beta,25-tetrahydroxydammar-23-ene, and (20S)-3beta,12beta,16beta,25-pentahydroxydammar-23-ene. The kno...

Commiphora opobalsamum is a Traditional Chinese Medicine used to treat traumatic injury, mainly by relaxing blood vessels. In this study, two diterpenes, dehydroabietic acid (DA) and sandaracopimaric acid (SA) were obtained from it by a bioassay-guided approach using isolated rat pulmonary artery rings. The structures of the two compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic methods (IR, 1H- and 13...

Commiphora leptophloeos is a plant specie usually known for its medicinal purposes in local communities in Northeast Brazil. In order to evaluate its therapeutic potential, we aimed to determine the phytochemical and antimicrobial properties of C. leptophloeos extracts. Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) was able to detect the presence of phenolic compounds, flavonoids and reducing sugars. Three p...

BACKGROUND Recent years have witnessed that there is a revival of interest in drug discovery from medicinal plants for the maintenance of health in all parts of the world. The aim of this work was to investigate 26 plants belonging to 17 families collected from a unique place in Yemen (Soqotra Island) for their in vitro anticancer, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. METHODS The 26 plan...