Haofu Dai, Wenli Mei, Delan Yang, Jining Yang, Wei Li

Key Laboratory of Tropical Crop Biotechnology, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences,

Haikou 571101, China

Agarwood (Chen-xiang in Chinese) is the resinous heartwood from Aquilaria species (Thymelaeaceae), large evergreen trees native to southeast Asia. Agarwood is also called eaglewood, gaharu, jinko, aloeswood, pokok karas, or oud in different cultures and is highly valued for its uses in medicine, as incense and perfume, and in other fields especially relating to its unique fragrance. Borris reviewed the uses of agarwood, e.g., as a stomachic medicine and in the treatments of liver disease, intestinal disorders, bronchitis, skin disease, and snakebites. In China, agarwood has been used as an incense for calming and keeping health in royal palaces since the Qin Dynasty. It has been used in Chinese traditional medicine as a sedative, analgesic, and digestive agent. So far, researchers have characterized sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromone derivatives from several sorts of agarwoods, and Japanese researchers considered that chromones together with pyrolyzation products and other volatiles contribute to the lasting pleasant odor of agarwoods when burnt. As agarwood has become more and more popular in the international market, it has also come to be a hot topic in many research fields, concerning among others the process of agar agarwood formation and the genes involved, activation of the production, testing of the product, classification of the grade of agarwood and its essential oil, as well as its extraction methods and chemical constituents.

To searching for bioactive metabolites from agarwood, the agarwood materials collected in China, Laos, and Indonesia were investigated. A serials new sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromone derivatives were isolated from three agarwood samples, and the bioassay result showed some of the new compounds had acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory and the cytotoxic activities.