Akebia quinata (Chocolate Vine or Five-leaf Akebia) is a shrub that is native to Japan, China and Korea.
It grows to 10 metres or more in height and has compound leaves with five leaflets. The inflorescences are clustered in racemes and are chocolate-scented, with three or four sepals. The fruits are sausage-shaped pods which contain edible pulp.
Four new 30-nortriterpenoid saponins were isolated as major saponins from the callus tissues of Akebia quinata. The structures of these glycosides, tentatively named quinatoside A-D, were elucidated as 30-norhederagenin 3-O-α-l-arabinoside, 30-norhederagenin 3-O- β-d-glucopyranosyl (1→3)-α-l-arabinopyranoside, 30-norhederagenin 3-O-β-d-xylopyranosyl (1→2)-α-l-arabinoside and 30-noroleanolic acid 3-O-β-d-xylopyranosyl 1→2-α-l-arabinopyranoside, respectively by means of 1H NMR, 13C NMR and SIMS. Furthermore, these saponins from the callus tissues were compared with the saponins isolated from the stem of A. quinata.