Low temperature crystal structure of natural diosgenone.

The molecular structure of diosgenone, a natural steroidal sapogenin, closely related to diosgenin and isolated from Solanum nudum, was solved by single crystal X-ray diffractometry at 120 K and refined by full-matrix least-squares to an agreement factor, R1 = 0.054. It crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P2₁, with a = 15.1870(4) A , b = 7.2710(2) A , c = 21.2840(6) A , β= 99.251(1) °, and four molecules in the unit cell (Z = 4). The results constitute the first structural report on a steroidal sapogenin from the diosgenin group.