author(s) : Khaled A. Abdelshafeek, Husseiny A. H. Elgendy and Abdel-Fattah M. Rizk

The family Celastraceae constitutes approximately 88 genera and 1300 species Boulos (2000).
The species of the family produce various β-dihydro-agarofuran sesquiterpene polyesters and pyridine alkaloids, some of which exhibit insect antifeedant and insecticidal activities.
Sesquiterpenes with α-dihydro-β-agarofuran skeleton are considered to be chemotaxonomic indicators of the family.
Most of the reported compounds were found to possess insecticidal activity (Deepa and Bai, 2010). A significant chemotaxonomic characteristic of this family is the presence of quinine triterpenoids.
Especially euonymol, 4β-hydroxyaltol and 1,4-deoxyalatol exhibits significant biological activities like antitumor, immunosuppressive, insecticidal, insect antifeedant and anti-HIV (Deepa and Bai, 2010).
A large variety of biologically-active secondary metabolites have been identified from the members of Celastraceae.
They include potent maytansinoids, macrocyclic spermidines, amphetamines, terpenoids, cardenolides and flavonoids.
The species of Celastraceae are a source of several terpenoids such as triterpenes of a series friedlane, lupane, oleanane, several types of dimeric triterpenes, and sesquiterpenes.
However the most wide-spread and characteristic metabolites of this family are a large group of unusually highly oxygenated sesquiterpenoids, based on 5,11-epoxy-5b,10a-eudesman-4-(14)-ene skeleton known as dihydro-b-agarofurans and are regarded as chemotaxonomic markers of the family (Bruning and Wagner, 1978; Tantry et al., 2016).
There are several reports on the anti-feedant activity, and/or the insecticidal activity of the sesquiterpenes, isolated from many species of the family Celastraceae (e.g. Gonzalez et al., 1997; Wang and Wu, 2002).