Ziziphus oxyphylla and Cedrela Serrata plants have a folkloric use in Pakistan for treatments of different ailments, i.e., Jaundice, Hepatitis, Diabetes, and antimicrobial. Until now, none of the research studies have reported any phytochemical work on leaves of these two plants. This study aimed to isolate and perform phytochemical analysis in order to search for the constituent having the active role in treatment of the aforementioned ailments. A bioassay-guided fractionation and isolation procedure was used to isolate the concerned phytochemicals present in leaf extracts of Z. oxyphylla and C. serrata. The process involved the hyphenated techniques, i.e., Flash Chromatography, Semi-Preparative HPLC/DAD, UPLC/MS, and NMR in order to isolate and elucidate the structure of the phytochemicals. Seven compounds (1–7) were isolated and identified as flavonoids, more in particular glycosides of quercetin and kaempferol. They showed DPPH scavenging activity, compound 3 (isoquercitrin) being the most active one with an IC50 of 10.8 µg/mL (positive control quercetin; IC50 3.6 µg/mL). The superoxide-radical scavenging and total antioxidant (ABTS) assays indicated IC50 values ranging from 200 to 910 µg/mL and 170 to 320 µg/mL, respectively (positive control quercetin: 374 and 180 µg/mL, respectively). Furthermore, these compounds had low IC50 values for inhibition of protein glycation (AGEs inhibition), ranging from 530 to 818 µg/mL, comparable to aminoguanidine (510 µg/mL) used as a positive control. This study resulted in the identification of seven flavonoid glycosides for the first time from the leaves of Z. oxyphylla and C. serrata with antioxidative and antiglycating activities.

Seven cyclopeptide alkaloids were isolated from the stem bark of Ziziphus nummularia and Ziziphus spina-christi. Three previously undescribed compounds were identified: nummularine-U, spinanine-B and spinanine-C, together with the known compounds mauritine-F, nummularine-D, nummularine-E and amphibine-D. For their purification either semi-preparative HPLC with DAD and ESIMS detection or HPLC-PDA-(HRMS)-SPE-NMR was applied, together with conventional separation methods. Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic means.

Saponin-rich sea cucumber extracts have shown antidiabetic effects in a few reports. Although the triterpene glycosides of sea cucumbers are commonly isolated from their Cuvierian tubules, these are absent in Holothuria atra Jaeger. Therefore, this study intended to investigate the saponin profile in the body wall of H. atra, as well as to assess the α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of the H. atra extracts. The chemical profiling of sea cucumber extracts was conducted by UPLC-HRMS analysis. This resulted in the tentative identification of 11 compounds, 7 of which have not been reported in the H. Atra body wall before. Additionally, two triterpene glycosides were purified and their structures were elucidated based on HRMS and NMR data: desholothurin B (1), and a novel epimer, 12-epi-desholothurin B (2). Moreover, the fatty acid profile of the H. atra body wall was investigated by GC-MS. It was found that the Me90 fraction of the H. atra body wall showed the strongest α-glucosidase inhibitory activity (IC₅₀ value 0.158 ± 0.002 mg/mL), thus making it more potent than acarbose (IC₅₀ value 2.340 ± 0.044 mg/mL).