Phenolic glycosides from the rhizomes of Cyperus rotundus and their antidepressant activity

Depression is the most common psychiatric comorbidity in patients. Searching for antidepressant drugs from natural products is very important for the treatment of this disease. The ethanol extract and its fractions of Cyperus rotundus were evaluated for antidepressant activities in mice by our group. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential active components of C. rotundus. The extraction and solvent partition of the rhizomes of C. rotundus, and repeated column chromatography for n-BuOH fraction yielded three new phenolic glycosides, rotunduside D (1), rotunduside E (2), and rotunduside F (3). Their chemical structures were identified on the basis of spectroscopic data analyses including NMR, MS, UV, and IR. The potential antidepressant activity of all the isolated compounds was evaluated. In the despair mice models, rotunduside F (3) showed significant antidepressant activity at the dosage of 50 mg/kg, which was close to the positive control fluoxetine (20 mg/kg).