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Ovarian cancer is regarded as one of the most severe malignancies for women in the world. Death rates have remained steady over the past five decades, due to the undeniable inefficiency of the current treatment in preventing its recurrence and death. The development of new effective alternative agents for ovarian cancer treatment is becoming increasingly critical. Tea saponins (TS) are triterpenoidsaponins composed of sapogenins, glycosides, and organic acids, which possess a variety of pharmacological activities, and have shown promise in the anti-cancer field. Through cell CellTiter 96® Aqueous One Solution Cell Proliferation assay (MTS) assay, colony formation, Hoechst 33342 staining assay, caspase-3/7 activities, flow cytometry for apoptosis analysis, and Western blot, we observed that TS isolated from the seeds of tea plants, Camellia sinensis, exhibited strong anti-proliferation inhibitory effects on OVCAR-3 and A2780/CP70 ovarian cancer cell lines. Our results indicate that TS may selectivity inhibit human ovarian cancer cells by mediating apoptosis through the extrinsic pathway, and initiating anti-angiogenesis via decreased VEGF protein levels in a HIF-1α-dependent pathway. Our data suggests that, in the future, TS could be incorporated into a potential therapeutic agent against human ovarian cancer.

Saponins in the Camellia sinensis seeds have a broad spectrum of biological properties and application potentials. However, up to now, no chromatographic methods have been developed to provide full fingerprinting and quality assurance for these saponins. This research aimed to develop a novel method to tentatively identify and quantify saponins in C. sinensis seeds by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with photo-diode array detector and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-PDA-QTOF-MS/MS), and compare it with the classic vanillin-sulfuric acid assay. Fifty-one triterpene saponins, including six potentially new compounds, were simultaneously detected by UPLC-PDA-MS/MS, and their chemical structures were speculated according to the retention behavior and fragmentation pattern. The total saponin content in the crude extract and the purified saponin fraction of C. sinensis seeds were quantified to be 19.57 ± 0.05% (wt %) and 41.68 ± 0.09% (wt %) respectively by UPLC-PDA at 210 nm, while the corresponding values were determined to be 43.11 ± 3.17% (wt %) and 56.60 ± 5.79% (wt %) respectively by the vanillin-sulfuric acid assay. The developed UPLC-PDA -MS/MS method could determine specified saponins, and is more reliable for quantifying the C. sinensis seed saponins than the classic spectrophotometric method. It is of great significance for the future investigations and applications of these saponins.

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