Chemical and Biological Studies of Cannabis sativa Roots

The chemical study of Cannabis sativa roots led to the isolation and identification of 10 compounds. Their chemical structures were unambiguously established on the basis of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry as friedelan-3-one (1), epifriedelanol (2), β-sitosterol (3), ergost-5-en-3-ol (4), methyl hexadecanoate (5), pentadecanoic acid (6), 10E-hexadecenoic acid (7), 4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde (8), β-sitosterol-β-D-glucoside (9) and p-coumaroyltyramine (10). Compounds 5–9 were reported for the first time from C. sativa roots. All the isolated compounds were tested for their antimicrobial activity. Compound 4 showed modest activity against Cryptococcus neoformans with an IC 50 value of 13.7 μg/mL, while compound 10 displayed potent activity against Escherichia coli with an IC 50 value of 0.8 μg/mL. A high-performance liquid chromatography method was developed and validated for the detection and quantification of p-coumaroyltyramine (10) in the extracts of different varieties of C. sativa roots.