Relationships between Inhibitory Activity against a Cancer Cell Line Panel, Profiles of Plants Collected, and Compound Classes Isolated in an Anticancer Drug Discovery Project

Abstract

In an attempt to determine the relationships between the plant profiles (country of collection, taxonomy, plant part) and the compound classes isolated with cytotoxic activity against a panel of human tumor cell lines, the data compiled from a 15-year anticancer drug-discovery project were subjected to an analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicate significant trends in cytotoxic activity relative to collection location, taxonomy, plant part, and compound classes isolated. Plant collections were made in tropical forests in six countries, with collections from Ecuador resulting in higher activity than those from Indonesia and Peru. Interestingly, collections from Florida were not statistically different than those from the countries with higher biodiversity. One hundred and forty-five families were represented in the collections, with the Clusiaceae, Elaeocarpaceae, Meliaceae, and Rubiaceae having low ED50 (half maximal effective dose) values. Especially active genera included Aglaia, Casearia, Exostema, Mallotus, and Trichosanthes. Roots and below-ground plant materials were significantly more active than above-ground materials. Cucurbitacins, flavaglines, anthraquinones, fatty acids, tropane alkaloids, lignans, and sesquiterpenoids were significantly more active than xanthones and oligorhamnosides. The results from this study should serve as a guide for future plant collection endeavors for anticancer drug discovery.

Leishmanicidal activities of the extract from Blepharocalyx salicifolius (Kunth) O. Berg, Myrtaceae

“…It has 133 genera and about 3800 species (Wilson et al, 2001). Several studies present the results about isolation and biological activities of substances from Myrtaceae, as example the cytotoxic actions against tumoral cells (Balunas et al, 2006;Werka et al, 2007), anti-inflammatory action (Lima et al, 2007;Jiang & Xu, 2003), antioxidant action (Marzouk et al, 2007), bactericidal (Schmidt et al, 2006) and fungicidal (Woollard et al, 2008) activities. Thus, species from this family has been important targets to isolation of actives substances and developing of new drugs.…”

Revisiting the linkage between ethnomedical use and development of new medicines: A novel plant collection strategy towards the discovery of anticancer agents

“…It should be noted that the National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group ("Novel Strategies for the Discovery of PlantDerived Anticancer Agents") (Kinghorn et al, 2003;Balunas et al, 2006), the intellectual predecessor of the P01CA125066 program project, overlaps substantially with the Vietnam-Laos ICBG (Kinghorn et al, 2003(Kinghorn et al, , 2009 in both time period (1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006) and the cell lines employed in cytotoxicity testing. Cell lines tested for viability against plant extracts during the ICBG included human colon cancer (COL-2), human promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60), human telomerase reverse transcriptase-retinal pigment epithelial cells (hTERT-RPE1), human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), human cervical carcinoma, formerly believed to be oral carcinoma (KB); human prostate carcinoma (LNCaP), human lung cancer (LU-1), and human breast cancer (MCF-7) (Soejarto et al, 2002;Kinghorn et al, 2003;Gyllenhaal et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2016).…”

“…No comparable meta-analysis in relation to the cell lines utilized was produced by the NCDDG, although a synthesis communicated significant insight into potential chemotaxonomic and plant anatomy-based relationships to activity hit rates and levels of cytotoxicity (Balunas et al, 2006). …”

Triterpenes and Coumaroyltyramide from Ochthocosmus <i>Africanus</i>

“…As part of our continuous effort for phytochemical study of Cameroonian plants, Ochthocosmus africanus was selected and investigated. During the investigation, one new triterpene ester named ochtofridelane (1) and three known compounds including stigmasterol (2) [9,10], N-p-trans-coumaroyltyramine (3) [11] and taraxerol (4) [10,12] were isolated. It was done using various chromatographic techniques on silica gel and characterized on one hand their spectral data, and the literature on the other hand.…”