Goniothalamus cheliensis Hu is a kind of plant of the genus Goniothalamus (Annonaceae) distributing in Yunnan province, southwest of Chian. In order to seek for the new type of antitumour agent from the genus, we discovered that the EtOH extract of the roots of the titled plant showed strong cytotoxic activities against a number of human cancer cell lines in preliminary pharmacological screening. Bioassay-guided fractionation of the alcoholic extract resulted in the isolation of thiryt-eight compounds, among them two compounds were identified as new structure by the spectral data and chemical evidence, which were named as gonioquinone and goniofufurone acetonide respectively.

Key words: ANTITUMOR DRUGS, CHEMICAL COMPOSITION