Protoberberine alkaloids from the rhizome of Coptis japonica Makino

As part of our program to isolate bioactive compounds from korean natural sources, we have screened traditional medicinal plants to cytotoxity on human tumor cells. Of them, the MeOH extract from rhizome of Coptis japonica Makino was found to be active against five cultured human tumor cell lines. So, the MeOH extract was subjected to successive solvent partitioning to give n-hexane, chloroform and BuOH. The activity was concentrated into the chloroform extract. The extract was chromatographied on a silica gel column and resulted in the isolation 5 alkaloids. (omitted)