Salacinol, potent antidiabetic principle with unique thiosugar sulfonium sulfate structure from the Ayurvedic traditional medicine Salacia reticulata in Sri Lanka and India 

 -  Tetrahedron Letters, 38(48), p.8367-8370, 1997 .
<br/><br/> A most potent natural -glucosidase inhibitor named salacinol has been isolated from an antidiabetic Ayurvedic traditional medicine, Salacia reticulata, through bioassay-guided separation. The stereostructure of salacinol was determined on the basis of chemical and physicochemical evidence, which included the X-ray crystallographic analysis, and the molecular conformation showed the unique spiro-like configuration of the inner salt comprised of 1-deoxy-4-thioarabinofuranosyl cation and 1'-deoxyerythrosyl-3'-sulfate anion