Nilupa Amarasinghe

• University of Peradeniya

Tea, from Camellia sinensis, is second only to water in global consumption. Tea germplasm in Sri Lanka consists of over 600 tea cultivars, and currently, 70 of them are recommended for commercial tea cultivation. However, the biological activities of Sri Lankan tea cultivars have not been documented. The present study investigated the in vitro enzy...

The aim of this article is to review the antiviral activity of plants traditionally used in indigenous medicine in Sri Lanka, their therapeutic potential, chemistry, and botany. Viral infections represent an increasing threat to humans worldwide. Conventional antiviral drugs are available against respiratory viruses. Naturally occurring antiviral a...

The fruit aril of Myristica fragrans, commonly known as “mace”, is a popular spice in worldwide. Chromatographic separation of the combined ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and the methanol (MeOH) extracts of the aril of Myristica fragrans furnished malabaricone C (1), 3-(3-methyl-5-pentyl-2-furanyl)-2(E)-propenoic acid (2), licarin A (3), maceneolignan B (4)...

Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is an enzyme present in cholinergic synapses of the nervous system and, it terminates the neurotransmission process by breaking down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. One of the approaches to treat Alzheimer's disease (AD) is to maintain the levels of acetylcholine through the inhibition of AChE. Inhibitors of AChE are...

The aza-Henry reaction is an efficient route to important chiral, vicinal diamines. Reports of the asymmetric version typically use electron-deficient acyclic imines. We report the first example of a catalytic, asymmetric aza-Henry reaction on an unfunctionalized cyclic imine that gives access to enantiopure diamine derivatives under experimentally...

Chemical investigation of the leaves of Elaeocarpus serratus yielded myricitrin (1), mearnsetin 3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (2), mearnsitrin (3), tamarixetin 3-O-α-L-rhamnopyranoside (4) and the fruits of Filicium decipiens yielded three flavonol glycosides, kaempferol 3-O-rutinoside (5), kaempferol 3-O-robinobioside (6) and trifolin (7). Compound 1 sh...

A new glucoside ester, named flacourside, has been isolated together with known methyl 6-O-(E)-p-coumaroyl glucopyranoside and 6-O-(E)-p-coumaroyl glucopyranose from the n-butanol extract of fruit juice of the Flacourtia indica. The structure of flacourside has been determined to be 4-oxo-2-cyclopentenylmethyl 6-O-(E)-p-coumaroyl-β-d-glucopyranosid...