Determination of Cytotoxic Compounds of Lepista personata (Fr.) Cooke by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and Chemometrics

Abstract

The cytotoxic activities of hexane, acetone, and methanol extracts of Lepista personata were evaluated against lung (H1299), prostate (LNCaP), colon (CaCo-2), and breast (MCF-7) cancer cell lines. The hexane extract of Lepista personata exhibited significant cytotoxic activity against CaCo-2 (EC50: 198.7 ± 4.9 µg/mL), LNCaP (EC50: 152.1 ± 3.8 µg/mL), and MCF-7 (EC50: 98.37 ± 2.5 µg/mL). Only the hexane extract exhibited cytotoxicity; thus, it was fractionated to enrich the cytotoxicity against the studied cancerous cell lines over a silica gel column. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses and the cytotoxicity of all fractions were investigated. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the GC-MS and cytotoxicity (EC50) results. According to the PCA, the cytotoxic fractions containing abundant benzoic acid (0.01–26.19%), cinnamic acid (0.01–5.63%), arachidic acid (0.01–17.93%), heneicosanoic acid (0.01–14.57%), 1-monolinolein (0.01–26.34%), stigmasterol (0.01–10.15%) and ergosterol (0.01–17.10%) were clustered. Moreover, the chemical composition comparison of hexane extract and its fractions, when evaluated together with PCA, revealed that the bioactive compounds detected as benzoic acid, cinnamic acid, azelaic acid, 1-monolinolein, stigmasterol, and ergosterol, which were concentrated in fractions 3, 6, 7, and 9, were responsible for the cytotoxic activity. When used with bioactivity and chemometric analysis, GC-MS of the fractions identified the bioactive compounds.