Abstract
The dried powdered roots of Phyllanthus pulcher Wall. ex Mull. Arg. (Euphorbiaceae), were sequentially extracted with dichloromethane (DCM), ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and methanol (MeOH). The extracts were tested for cytotoxic activity against three human cancer cell lines: MCF-7 (breast), NCI-H460 (lung) and DU-145 (prostate). The DCM extract exhibited the strongest cytotoxic activity compared with EtOAc and MeOH extracts. Hence from the DCM extract, five pentacyclic triterpenes, 3α-acetoxyl-25-hydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid (1), glochidone (2), 12(13)-dehydro-3α-acetoxyolean-28-oic acid (3), lupanyl acetate (4) and glochidonol (5) were isolated and identified by spectroscopic analyses (1H NMR, 13C NMR, FT-IR, UV, DEPT, HMQC, HMBC and HREIMS). This is the first report on the isolation of 4 from a natural source, whereas 1 and 3 have already been isolated from the families Hamamelidaceae and Compositae (Asteraceae), respectively. However this is the first study reporting the presence of 1 and 3 in the Euphorbiaceae family. The isolated tritepenes 1-5 were tested against the three human tumour cell lines as stated above. Only compounds 1 and 5 exhibited cytotoxic activity, 5 being most potent with IC50 values ranging 7.5–13.4 µg/mL (17.1–30.5 µM). Key words: Phyllanthus pulcher, triterpenoids, cytotoxic activity, breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer.
Highlights
The genus Phyllanthus is widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical parts of the world and has Abbreviations: DCM, dichloromethane; EtOAc, ethyl acetate; MeOH, methanol; TLC, thin-layer chromatography. `been extensively used in Asian traditional medicine (Burkill, 1935)
The investigation of phytochemicals of the roots of this species with cytotoxic activity led to the isolation of five triterpenes 1–5 (Figure 1)
Compounds 1, 2 and 5 were identified by comparison of their spectral data with the literature values, which supported the structures as 3αacetoxyl-25-hydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid (Chun et al, 2002) and, glochidone and glochidonol (Puapairoj et al, 2005), respectively
Summary
The genus Phyllanthus is widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical parts of the world and has Abbreviations: DCM, dichloromethane; EtOAc, ethyl acetate; MeOH, methanol; TLC, thin-layer chromatography. `. been extensively used in Asian traditional medicine (Burkill, 1935). The wide range of its pharmacological activities was discussed in a number of reviews (Unander et al, 1990, 1992; Bagalkotkar et al, 2006). The extensive phytochemical investigations on several Phyllanthus species revealed various bioactive constituents such as alkaloids, lignans, terpenes, flavones and tannins (Matsunga et al, 1993; Foo, 1995; Bila et al, 1996; Houghton et al, 1996; Lee et al, 1996; Zhang et al, 2001, 2002; Chang et al, 2003).
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