Discovery and identification of 2-phenylethyl 2,6-dihydroxybenzoate as a natural lipid-lowering lead.

Guided by lipid-lowering assays, a new compound (1, 2-phenylethyl 2,6-dihydroxybenzoate) was isolated from the ethanolic extract of Geophila herbacea. The structure of 1 was determined unambiguously by spectral data interpretation and confirmed by X-ray crystallographic analysis. Preliminary dose-dependency of 1 verified its lipid-lowering bioactivity in vitro. A facile chemical synthesis for 1 was performed to provide a practical approach for further studies on structure-activity relationship. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.