Abstract
Natural compounds are emerging as agents for the treatment of malignant diseases. We previously showed that extracts from in vitro cell suspension cultures of strawberry reduced murine melanoma cell proliferation, as shown for fruit extracts. In this work, chromatographic, mass spectrometric, and spectrophotometric analyses were carried out to identify the bioactive compound exerting the detected cytotoxic activity. Moreover, aiming to confirm the anti-proliferative activity of the extracts against both paediatric and adult human tumors, cytotoxic experiments were performed on neuroblastoma, colon, and cervix carcinoma cell lines. Extracts from in vitro cell suspension cultures of strawberry induced a statistically significant reduction of cell growth in all the tumor cell lines tested. Interestingly, human fibroblasts from healthy donors were not subjected to this cytotoxic effect, highlighting the importance of further preclinical investigations. The accurate mass measurement, fragmentation patterns, and characteristic mass spectra and mass losses, together with the differences in chromatographic retention times and absorbance spectra, led us to hypothesize that the compound acting as an anti-proliferative agent could be a novel acetal dihydrofurofuran derivative (C8H10O3, molecular mass 154.0630 amu)
Highlights
Several natural compounds have been isolated from plant sources, and their use in the clinic leads to estimate that approximately two-thirds of the active ingredients present in anticancer drugs and in drugs for infectious diseases are of plant origin [1]
We previously showed that extracts from fruit and from cell suspension cultures of Fragaria x ananassa Duch
We argued that HMF detected in the acid alcoholic extract could be the product of the degradation of cell wall constituents, as it is known that the sugar components present within cellulose and hemicellulose can be degraded to hydroxy-methyl-furfural [20,21]
Summary
Several natural compounds have been isolated from plant sources, and their use in the clinic leads to estimate that approximately two-thirds of the active ingredients present in anticancer drugs and in drugs for infectious diseases are of plant origin [1]. Many natural products used for cancer treatment occur at very low levels in plant tissues and, due to their complex structure, a completely synthetic production would be too expensive. The use of plant cell cultures for the production of metabolites is an interesting area of science [4], especially when the natural supply is limited by low yields, slow growth rates, or both [5,6]. The production of metabolites via plant cell culture is renewable and environmentally friendly; the growth of in vitro plants under controlled conditions allows obtaining useful and continue quantities of metabolites
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