Abstract
Two new tetracyclic cucurbitane-type triterpene glycosides were isolated from an ethyl acetate extract of Citrullus colocynthis leaves together with four known cucurbitacins. Their structures were established on the basis of their spectroscopic data (mainly NMR and mass spectrometry). Evaluation of the in vitro cytotoxic activity of the isolated compounds against two human colon cancer cell lines (HT29 and Caco-2) and one normal rat intestine epithelial cell line (IEC6), revealed that one of the isolated compounds presented interesting specific cytotoxic activity towards colorectal cell lines.
Highlights
The plants used in Tunisian traditional medicine are a rich source of pharmacologically active natural products [1,2,3,4,5]
Given the cytotoxic potential of cucurbitacins on colon cancer cells [28], we evaluated the in vitro cytotoxic activity of the compounds isolated against colon cancer cell lines Caco-2 and HT29, which exhibit a different mutation phenotype [32], and the non-transformed IEC6 intestinal cell line [33]
Cucurbitacins 1–6 (Figure 1) were detected in a defatted ethyl acetate leaf extract by TLC interfaced with ESI-MS in positive ionization mode
Summary
The plants used in Tunisian traditional medicine are a rich source of pharmacologically active natural products [1,2,3,4,5]. The phytochemical content of fruits is well known for bioactive compounds such as cucurbitacins; phenolic acids and flavonoids; pyridine and quinolone-type alkaloids, fatty acids; and a volatile fraction containing small alcoholic and ketonic alkyl chains [11,15,16,17] Among these derivatives, cucurbitacins and their glycosides have been the most studied since, to date, 20 of these highly oxygenated triterpenoids were isolated from the fruit [11,18,19,20,21,22,23]. Given the cytotoxic potential of cucurbitacins on colon cancer cells [28], we evaluated the in vitro cytotoxic activity of the compounds isolated against colon cancer cell lines Caco-2 and HT29, which exhibit a different mutation phenotype [32], and the non-transformed IEC6 intestinal cell line [33]
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