Bioactive Glycosides from the Twigs of Litsea cubeba

The air-dried twigs of Litsea cubeba, a traditional Chinese medicinal tree, afforded 10 new aromatic glycosides (1–10) and 26 known analogues. Their structures were assigned by extensive 1D and 2D NMR experiments, and the absolute configurations were resolved by chemical methods, electronic circular dichroism, specific rotation, and X-ray crystallographic analysis. Compound 4 is the first example of a naturally occurring homoneolignan glucoside. Compounds 4, 6–8, and the known neolignan glucosides (11, 12, and 14) at respective 10 μM concentrations were found to reduce acetaminophen-induced HepG2 cell injury with 30.5–46.0% inhibitions. Furthermore, compounds 12 and 15 demonstrated moderate inhibitory activities against HDAC1, with IC50 values of 3.6 and 4.6 μM, respectively.