ISOLATION OF 6-GINGEROL, 8-GINGEROL, AND 10-GINGEROL FROM GINGER RHIZOME BY HPLC AND PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF INHIBITION OF MYCOBACTERIUM-AVIUM AND MYCOBACTERIUM-TUBERCULOSIS

Diseases caused by Mycobacterium avium (M. avium) and Mycobacterium tu berculosis (M. tuberculosis) have reached pandemic proportions with so me strains being resistant to existing chemotherapies. Complex therapi es requiring four to six drugs are sometimes required to prevent the e mergence of resistant strains. There is a need for the discovery of ne w drugs or compounds that are potential drug templates that can be use d to treat diseases caused by these bacteria. The research reported in this paper describes the isolation of 6-, 8-, and 10-gingerol from fr esh ginger rhizome and the identification of 10-gingerol as the most a ctive inhibitor of M. avium and M. tuberculosis in vitro. The gingerol s were isolated by fractionation of a crude methylene chloride extract of fresh ginger rhizome by normal phase HPLC. Identification was base d on mass spectral data. The identification of 10-gingerol was confirm ed by synthesis.