Phytosterols and diterpenoids isolated from Euphorbia graminea Jacq. (Asteraceae) leaves exhibit antiproliferative effects against human MCF-7 breast and NCI-H460 lung cancer cell lines
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55639/6k92v757Keywords:
Anticancer, Euphorbia graminea, Antiproliferation, SRB assay, Abietane-11, 23 diene-16-oic- 14-one.Abstract
Abstract
The plant Euphorbia graminea is a tree that has been used in Nigeria for the treatment of various diseases such as cancer, inflammations, diabetes, and ulcers in folk medicine. The present work was aimed at isolating phytosterols and diterpenoids from the leaf extract with potential anticancer and antiproliferative effects against selected cancer cell lines. The chloroform fraction from the 90 %
aqueous methanol leaves extract of E. graminea was subjected to vacuum liquid chromatographic fractionation and the fractions were tested at the concentration of 1-100 μg/mL on MCF-7 and NCIH460 cell lines. Data obtained were statistically analysed using one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s post hoc test (p < 0.05; p = 0.001). The results showed that the chloroform fraction of Euphorbia graminea has demonstrated significant anti-cancer activities against MCF-7 breast and NCIH460 lung cancer cell lines. Repeated bioassay-chromatographic fractionation of the active fractions
yielded four known compounds as triacontan-1-ol, dotriacontan-1-ol, stigmasterol, stigmasta-5-en-3β-
ol and a new compound abietane-11, 23 diene-16-oic-14-one whose identities were unequivocally
confirmed through detailed NMR and Mass spectroscopic analyses. Against MCF-7 cell lines,
dotriacontan-1-ol and abietane-11, 23 diene-16-oic-14-one produced LC50 of ~40 and ~91 μM
respectively, compared to the ~10 μM produced by standard drug doxorubicin (p < 0.05; p = 0.001).
The LC50 against NCI-H460 was observed to be >100 μM for all compounds while doxorubicin gave
15 μM. The isolated compounds from this plant are reported here for the first time. Among the
compounds, Dotriacontan-1-ol and Abietane-11, 23 diene-16-oic-14-one were observed to elicit a
selective antiproliferative activity on MCF-7 and NCI-H460 respectively hence could be considered as
selective natural anticancer agents. However, the mechanism with which these compounds exhibit this
activity was not studied and should be considered for future research.
