Investigation of bioative compounds from the ethyl acetate extract of Euphorbia hirta Linn

Euphorbia hirta Linn. (co sua la lon in Vietnamese) belongs to Euphorbiaceae family, is a group of small prostrate herbaceous annual weed in Vietnam. It is abundant in waste places and open grasslands and distributes in most Asian countries. E. hirta is traditionally used in the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders, bronchial and respiratory. The aqueous extract exhibits anxiolytic, analgesic, antipyretic, and anti-inflammatory activities. Strong anti-diabetic activity of Euphorbiaceae family in general and E. hirta in particular was reported in the past investigations. E. hirta has been studied by various investigations and several active constituents have been isolated and identified successfully. Most of those compounds have strong biological activities. At the first step in the processing of the isolation of bioactive compounds from the ethyl acetate extract, we isolated four purified compounds, including methyl gallate (1), quercetin (2), myrecitin (3), and quercitrin (4). The chemical structures of those compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic methods and compared with published data in the literature.