A New Phenolic Compound from the Leaves of Nicotiana tabacum and its Anti-tobacco Mosaic Virus Activities

Nicotiana tabacum, tobacco, is a stout herbaceous plant in the Solanaceae (nightshade family) that originated in the tropical Americas (South America, Mexico and the West Indies) and now cultivated worldwide as the primary commercial source of tobacco, which is smoked or chewed as a drug for its mild stimulant effects 1,2 .In addition, N. tabacum is also used as insecticides, anesthetics, diaphoretics, sedatives and emetic agents in Chinese folklore medicines because of its containing many useful chemical compounds 1,3 .In previous investigation of this species led to the discovery of a number of new compounds by our groups and those compounds were found to be shown various bioactivities, such as anti-HIV-1, anti-TMV and cytotoxicity [4][5][6][7][8][9] .With the aim of continuing efforts to utilize N. tabacum and identify bioactive natural products, the phytochemical investigation of the leaves of Honghua Dajinyuan (a variety of N. tabacum) was carried out and led to the isolation of a new phenolic compound (1) (Fig. 1).