A new indole alkaloid; neonaucline (1), along with six known compounds–Cadamine (2), naucledine (3), harmane, benzamide, cinnamide and blumenol A–were isolated from the leaves of Ochreinauclea maingayii (Rubiaceae). In addition to that of compound 1, ¹³C-NMR data of cadamine (2) and naucledine (3) were also reported. Structural elucidations of these alkaloids were performed using spectroscopic methods especially 1D- and 2D-NMR, IR, UV and LCMS-IT-TOF. The excellent vasorelaxant activity on isolated rat aorta was observed for the alkaloids 1–3 after injection of each sample at 1 × 10⁻⁵ M.

Phytochemical investigation of the dichloromethane crude extract from the bark of Ochreinauclea maingayi with the aid of LCMS/MS-based molecular networking guided the isolation and accelerated the elucidation of known and new indole alkaloids. The molecular networking analysis produces two main clusters, along with 41 non-prioritized clusters and self-loop nodes. Each cluster has several nodes which depict the fractions contained within those nodes. An implementation of a fraction mapping for each node represents the molecular weight and key fragment data of each compound. From the analysis of each cluster and node, we can deduce the indole alkaloids are the scaffold of interest. Indole scaffold can be found between F5 and F10 that contain several types of indole alkaloids. In total, we have successfully purified nine indole alkaloids, including 9H-β-carboline-4-carboxylate 2, norharmane 3, harmane 4, naucledine 10, neonaucline 15, 1,2,3,4-tetranorharmane-1-one 16, naulafine 19, cadambine 9, and a new monoterpene indole alkaloid dihyrodeglycocadambine 7 from F5 to F10 using a chromatographic technique. Their structures were confirmed by 1D-NMR, 2D-NMR, UV, IR, LCMS, and MS2LDA. Several clusters and nodes contain ions that could not be annotated, suggesting that they may possess novel compounds that are yet to be discovered.