Alkaloids constituents from the roots of (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. with their cytotoxic activities.

Two new alkaloids, phranisines AB (), along with two known compounds, N-p-Coumaroyl serotonin () and N-p-coumaroyl-tryptamine (), were isolated from the roots of . The structures of were established on the basis of extensive spectroscopic. The absolute configuration of compounds were identified through quantum-chemical electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculation compared with their experimental CD. All the isolated compounds were tested for their cytotoxic activities against HeLa and MCF-7 human cancer cell lines, and compounds showed moderate cytotoxic activities against HeLa cell lines with IC values ranging from 13.2 to 18.6 M.