Phenolic Compounds from Mongolian Medicinal Plants

Natural products, also known as secondary metabolites, have been the major sources of chemical diversity of starting materials for driving drug discovery over the past century. However, only very few Mongolian medicinal plants which nurtured by unique ecosystem of Mongolia have been studied phytochemically so far. The subject of this study was the isolation and structural elucidation of the secondary metabolites from medicinal plants, followed by the evaluation of their pharmacological potential. Two Mongolian medicinal plants and one Chinese medicinal plant have been selected as the biological sources. Various modern chromatographic techniques were used for separation and purification of the natural products from the crude extract. The structures were unambiguously elucidated on the basis of one- and two-dimensional NMR and mass spectrometric data. Some of the isolated compounds showed promising biological activities and were considered for further pharmacological studies.