Anticholinesterase Activity of Methanolic Extract of Amorpha fruticosa Flowers and Isolation of Rotenoids and Putrescine and Spermidine Derivatives

Abstract

Five putrescine and spermidine derivatives (1–5) together with five rotenoids (6–10) were isolated from a methanolic extract of the flowers of A. fruticosa that displayed promising inhibition of 76.0 ± 1.9% for AChE and 90.0 ± 4.0% for BuChE at a concentration of 1 mg/mL. Although the anticholinesterase activities of the isolated compounds did not reach that of galantamine, molecular docking revealed that all-trans-tri-p-coumaroylspermidine and trans-trans-cis-tri-p-coumaroylspermidine showed binding poses mimicking the known inhibitor galantamine and thus could serve as model molecules in future searches for new AChE and BuChE inhibitors.