**3. Cucurbitane-type triterpene glycosides**

Several new cucurbitane-type triterpene glycosides (**Figures 3** and **4**) have been isolated from the fruit pulp of *Momordica charantia* L., and their cytotoxic activity has been evaluated.

Two new cucurbitane-type triterpene glycosides, charantagenins D (**15′**) and E (**16′**), and one new sterol, 7-oxo-stigmasta-5, 25-diene-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (**17′**), were isolated from the fruit of *M. charantia* L. together with another six known compounds (**18′–23′**). The cytotoxic activities of the major isolated compounds were evaluated against the lung cancer cell line A549, glioblastoma cell line U87, and hepatoma carcinoma cell line Hep3B using in vitro MTT assays. Two new cucurbitane-type triterpenes, 25-methoxycucurbita-5,23(*E*) diene-3β,19-diol (**24′**) and 7β-ethoxy-3β-hydroxy-25-methoxycucurbita-5,23(*E*)-dien-19-al (**25′**), together with three known cucurbitane-type triterpenes, 3β,7β,25-trihydroxycucurbita-5,23(*E*)-dien-19-al (**26′**), (23*E*)-3βhydroxy-7β,25-dimethoxycucurbita-5,23-dien-19-al (**27′**), and 3β-hydroxy-25-methoxycucurbita-6,23(*E*)-dien-19,5β-olide (**28′**), were isolated from the fruit pulp of *M. charantia*. Their cytotoxic activity was evaluated against human hepatoma SK Hep-1 cells with etoposide as a positive control (IC50 = 3.7 μM). The results are shown in **Table 1** [19, 30].
