Toona ciliata Roem., belonging to the Meliaceae family, is now much cultivated throughout the tropics for its colour wood hearts suitable for architecture and furniture. Large amount of barks of T. ciliata are available as the by-product of wood first-stage processing, which also have been used as a Chinese folk medicine to treat diarrhea, dysentery, and ringworm. In order to further exploit their potential uses, 22 new limonoids, ciliatasecones D–Y (1–22) and eight known ones (23–30) were isolated from the barks of this plant in our current research. The cytotoxicity, anti-inflammatory, and anti-multidrug resistance (MDR) activities of these isolates were also evaluated. Compounds 3, 8, 27, and 29 at the concentration of 50 μM displayed significant MDR reversal activities in MCF-7/DOX cells to conventional anticancer drug doxorubicin. Compounds 3 and 29 exerted potentiation effects of 107.94 and 351.50-fold better than the positive control verapamil. This study added new data to the investigations of the structural diversity and biological activity of limonoids and provided phytochemical and pharmacological evidences for the further industrial and medicinal utilization of the barks of this common plant resource.

属于Meliaceae家族的Toona ciliata Roem。现在因其适合建筑和家具的彩色木心而在整个热带地区得到广泛种植。木材第一阶段加工的副产品有大量的纤毛树皮，也被用作治疗腹泻，痢疾和癣的中草药。为了进一步开发其潜在用途，在我们目前的研究中，从该植物的树皮中分离出22种新的柠檬苦素，c藤酮D–Y（1-22）和八种已知的柠檬苦素（23–30）。还评估了这些分离株的细胞毒性，抗炎和抗多药耐药性（MDR）活性。浓度为50μM的化合物3、8、27和29在MCF-7 / DOX细胞中显示出与常规抗癌药阿霉素相比显着的MDR逆转活性。化合物3和29的增强作用比阳性对照维拉帕米好107.94和351.50倍。这项研究为柠檬苦素的结构多样性和生物学活性研究提供了新的数据，并为进一步开发这种常见植物资源的树皮提供了植物化学和药理学证据。