Pregnane-type steroidal glycosides from Gymnema griffithii Craib.

Eight pregnane-type steroidal glycosides substituted with ortho-acetate groups were isolated from the methanolic extract of the pericarp of Gymnema griffithii fruits, and named gymnemogriffithosides A-H. Their structures were determined by spectroscopic analysis (one and two dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance, high resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy), while the absolute structure of the steroidal skeleton of one of these was additionally determined using Mosher's method. All compounds were evaluated for their in vitro (i) cytotoxic effects against five human tumor cell lines (BT 474, Chago, Hep-G2, KATO-III and SW620) and (ii) α-glucosidase inhibitory activity.