Insecticidal diarylheptanoid from Alpinia oxyphylla against larvae of Drosophila melanogaster

In the course of screening for novel naturally occurring insecticides from Chinese crude drugs, a MeOH extract of Alpinia oxyphylla was found to give an insecticidal activity against larvae of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen. From the extract, an insecticidal compound was isolated by bioassay-guided fractionation and identified as yakuchinone A (1) by GC, GC/MS, H-1 and C-13 NMR spectroscopy.