LAUSR

Caesalpinia decapetala (Roth) Alston is a climbing shrub that belongs to the genus Caesalpinia of the Fabaceae family. Previous studies have shown that this plant contains several classes of compounds, such as diterpenes, triterpenoids, flavonoids, steroids, and phenolic compounds. Among the isolated structures, diterpenes are a group of highly structurally diverse compounds and show significant biological activities, such as antimalarial, antiproliferative, antihelmintic, antibacterial, and antineoplastic effects. Because of these extensive activities, we carried out studies of the cassane diterpenes of the seeds of C. decapetala. During the course of this work, five cassane-type diterpenes were isolated from the CHCl3 extract of C. decapetala, among which caesaldecapes C and D (1–2) were identified as new compounds. In addition, three known compounds were characterized as caesalmin C (3), caesalmin E (4), and bonducellpin A (5) [8,9] (Fig. 1). In this paper, we report the isolation and structure elucidation of the isolated compounds as well as the evaluation of their cytotoxic activity.