Goniothalamus species: a source of drugs for the treatment of cancers and bacterial infections?

Christophe Wiart

doi:10.1093/ecam/nem009

Abstract

Irrespective of the presence of cytotoxic acetogenins and styryl-lactones in the genus Goniothalamus, only 22 species in the genus Goniothalamus, out of 160 species (13.7%) have so far been investigated. In an effort to promote further research on the genus Goniothalamus which could represent a source of drugs for the treatment of cancers and bacterial infections, this work offers a broad analysis of current knowledge on Goniothalamus species. Therefore, it includes (i) taxonomy (ii) botanical description (iii) traditional medicinal uses and (iv) phytochemical and pharmacological studies. We discuss the molecular mechanisms of actions of acetogenins and styryl-lactones, with some emphasis on the possible involvement of protein kinase, Bax and TRAIL receptors in the cytotoxic effects of styryl-lactones. We also report (v) the growth inhibition of several nosocomial bacteria by Goniothalamus. scortechinii. The crude methanol extract of G. scortechinii showed a good and broad spectrum of antibacterial activity against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.

Highlights

The genus Goniothalamus Hk. f. et Thoms. (Family Annonaceae A.L. de Jussieu 1789 nom. conserv., the Custard-Apple Family) consists of 160 species of archaic shrubs and treelets which grow in the shady primary rainforest of tropical Asia
We report the first evaluation of the antibacterial activity of hexane, dichloromethane and aqueous fractions of G. scortechinii
G. scortechinii was investigated as part of our study on the medicinal plants of Asia-Pacific [9,10, 97,98,99,100] A critical factor for Goniothalamus’ use as a medicinal herb is its content of styryl-lactones, which promote apoptosis in mammalian cells

Summary

Introduction

Goniothalamus for cancer treatment the antibacterial activity of Goniothalamus scortechinii. These phytochemical studies have resulted so far in the isolation of two very distinct classes of lipophilic secondary metabolites: acetogenins and styryl-lactones, both of them possessing complex stereochemistry and existing in different stereoisomeric forms [13] Testing of these chemicals for cytotoxicity showed that both acetogenins and styryl-lactones are toxic for several human tumors cell lines. Tian et al [82] showed that Goniothalamus styryl-lactones which are cytotoxic against both HepG2 and HepG2-R cell lines show less toxicity on normal mice hepatocytes as the IC50 values of them on normal mouse hepatocytes were about 3 times of that on HepG2 They demonstrated that cells treated with goniothalamin and altholactone stopped to multiply at G(2)/M and were apoptotic, whereas cells with chromosomes gathered at the equator were found in gonodiol-treated cultures. In the genus Goniothalamus, 138 species still await to be phytochemically investigated, including G. scortechinii, the antibacterial property of which is reported

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Findings

Conclusion