Prenylated flavonoids from Derris eualata, a first record of Curcumin from Derris

Derris eualata Bedd. Syn: Aganope thyrsiflora (Benth.) Polhill var. eualata (Bedd.) is a perennial climber that is endemic to India as well as South China and New Guinea. We made a first assessment of the aerial parts of this plant in our search for new secondary metabolites from Derris eualata, where in five flavonoids (1–6) namely, the prenylated flavanone, Methoxylupinifolin 1, two prenylated flavones, Laxifolin 2, Isolaxifolin 3, two pyranochalcones, Laxichalcone 4, Derrichalcone 5 along with a first record of Curcumin 6 are reported from this Leguminosae plant. The structures were assigned through careful inspection of 1H and 13C NMR, DEPT HMBC, HMQC, COSY and MS experiments as well as comparison with those reported in published literature. The flavonoids are a distinguished class of compounds that show a great deal of potential to be used as chemosystematics biomarkers, with the exception of Curcumin 6, all the compounds isolated from D. eualata are typical of Leguminosae members, with close metabolic affinities with Deguelia, Lonchocarpus, and Derris laxiflora, thus, making it relevant for the further examinations to be taken up on Derris species for their chemotaxonomic relationships. All the flavonoids are reported for the first time from D. eualata.