No abstract

Five guanidine alkaloids, mirabilin B (1), 8bb-hydroxyptilocaulin (2), ptilocaulin (3), and a mixture of the 8b-and 8a-epimers, 4 and 5, of 8-hydroxymirabilin (1,8a;8b,3a-didehydro-8-hydroxyptilocaulin), were isolated from Monanchora arbuscula colonies collected off the northeastern Brazilian coast. All structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis, including 1D ( 1 H-, 13 C-(BB), and 13 C-DEPT) and 2D (COSY, HSQC, and HMBC) NMR experiments, and comparison with the literature data. The cytotoxicity of the isolated compounds were evaluated against four tumor cell lines, showing that mirabilin B (1) and the two epimers were inactive, while 8bb-hydroxyptilocaulin (2) and ptilocaulin (3) presented IC 50 values in the range of 7.9 to 61.5 mm, and 5.8 to 40.0 mm, respectively. Further studies on the mechanism of action of ptilocaulin, using HL-60 leukemia cells, demonstrated that this guanidine compound induced apoptosis of the treated cells.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul's Archipelago is a collection of 15 islets and rocks remotely located in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. In this particular site, the present project intended to assess the biodiversity and biotechnological potential of bacteria from the actinomycete group. This study presents the first results of this assessment. From 21 sediment samples, 268 strains were isolated and codified as BRA followed by three numbers. Of those, 94 strains were grown in liquid media and submitted to chemical extractions with AcOEt (A), BuOH (B), and MeOH (M). A total of 224 extracts were screened for their cytotoxic activity and 41 were significantly active against HCT-116 cancer cells. The obtained IC values ranged from 0.04 to 31.55 μg/ml. The HR-LC/MS dereplication analysis of the active extracts showed the occurrence of several known anticancer compounds. Individual compounds, identified using HR-MS combined with analysis of the AntiMarin database, included saliniketals A and B, piericidins A and C and glucopiericidin A, staurosporine, N-methylstaurosporine, hydroxydimethyl-staurosporine and N-carbamoylstaurosporine, salinisporamycin A, and rifamycins S and B. BRA-199, identified as Streptomyces sp., was submitted to bioassay-guided fractionation, leading to isolation of the bioactive piericidins A and C, glucopiericidin, and three known diketopiperazines, cyclo(l-Phe-trans-4-OH-l-Pro), cyclo(l-Phe-l-Pro), and cyclo(l-Trp-l-Pro).

The present study reports the identification of two new staurosporine derivatives, 2-hydroxy-7-oxostaurosporine (1) and 3-hydroxy-7-oxostaurosporine (2), obtained from mid-polar fractions of an aqueous methanol extract of the tunicate Eudistoma vannamei, endemic to the northeast coast of Brazil. The mixture of 1 and 2 displayed IC50 values in the nM range and was up to 14 times more cytotoxic than staurosporine across a panel of tumor cell lines, as evaluated using the MTT assay.