In the course of screening natural products for antibacterial activities, a total acetone extract of the seed cake of Paeonia rockii showed significant effects against bacterial strains. Bioactivity-guided fractionation of the EtOAc-soluble fraction of the total acetone extract resulted in the isolation and identification of five resveratrol trimers, including rockiiol C (1), gnetin H (2), suff...

Oleanolic acid (OA) and ursolic acid (UA) have been proven to possess many biological activities, and much attention is focused on the search for plants which are rich in OA and UA. In this report, the OA and UA accumulation characteristics were investigated in 47 cultivars of Chinese herbaceous peony (Paeonia lactiflora Pall.) and were followed in three cultivars over different developmental s...

Tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa) is a perennial plant indigenous to China known for its elegant and vibrantly colorful flowers. A few genes involved in petal pigmentation have been cloned in tree peony. However, to date, there have been few studies on the comparison and selection of stable reference genes for gene expression analysis by quantitative reverse-transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) in this ...

Herbaceous peony (Paeonia lactiflora Pall.) is a traditional famous flower, but its poor inflorescence stem quality seriously constrains the development of the cut flower. Mechanical strength is an important characteristic of stems, which not only affects plant lodging, but also plays an important role in stem bend or break. In this paper, the mechanical strength, morphological indices and micr...

Paeonins A and B, new monoterpene galactosides have been isolated from the chloroform-soluble fraction of the roots of Paeonia emodi and showed potent lipoxygenase inhibitory activity. The structures of 1 and 2 have been assigned on the basis of spectral analysis including one- and two-dimensional NMR techniques.

(+/-)-Paeonilide, a novel monoterpenoid metabolite from the roots of Paeonia delavayi showing anti-platelet activating factor activity, is convergently synthesized in five steps with 59% overall yield. The application of benzoyl peroxide-promoted radical addition of unsaturated ester to aldehyde and subsequent topologically favored cyclization greatly simplified the synthesis.