New lignans from the bioactive fraction of Sambucus williamsii Hance and proliferation activities on osteoblastic-like UMR106 cells.

Four new lignans (1, 7-9), together with nine known ones, were isolated from the anti-osteoporosis fraction of the extract of Sambucus williamsii Hance which was eluted by 50% and 95% aqueous ethanol over D101 macroporous resin column. Their structures were elucidated by NMR spectroscopic analyses, and the absolute configurations of all compounds were determined by application of circular dichroism method. All the compounds were reported for the first time from the Sambucus genus and firstly studied for their proliferation effects on osteoblastic-like UMR 106 cell. The data showed that compounds 2-9 significantly promoted cell proliferation in some dose, especially compounds 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 increased osteoblastic cell numbers by 31.3%, 28.3%, 25.6%, 25.1% and 26.0% at 10(-10) M, 10(-10) M, 10(-7) M, 10(-10) M and 10(-10) M, respectively, which suggested that lignans were the components accounting for the bone protective effects of SWH.