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Cytotoxic activities of chemical constituents from rhizomes of Anemarrhena asphodeloides and their analogues

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Abstract

Seven steroidal saponins (1–7) and two xanthones (8, 9) were isolated from the rhizomes of Anemarrhena asphodeloides. Then in order to discover more analogues, which may possess good biological activity, the structural modifications of 2 and 9 were performed by acid hydrolysis and acetylation. Consequently, one novel steroidal saponin (2d, timosaponin BII-d), three compounds (2c, 2e and 2f) which were also the new products prepared by the diluted acid hydrolysis of 3 by our group previously, and four known compounds (2a, 2b, 9a and 9b) were obtained. The structures were elucidated by analyses of NMR and MS data. All the compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxicities against BEL-7402, HT-29, HeLa and MDA-MB-468 cell lines in vitro by Sulforhodamine protein coloration method. Compounds 1, 2, 2b, 4–6, 9a and 9b showed certain anti-proliferative activities against the four cell lines, in which compounds 2, 4 and 9b exhibited especially more potent activities. The structure–activity relationships of these compounds were simply discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81274055).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Institute of Materia Media, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 501 Haike Road, Zhangjiang, Pudong, Shanghai, 201203, China

    Jing Guo, Chenghui Xu, Rui Xue, Bin Wu & Chenggang Huang

  2. Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin, 150076, China

    Jing Guo & Weixin Jiang

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  1. Jing Guo
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  2. Chenghui Xu
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  3. Rui Xue
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  4. Weixin Jiang
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  5. Bin Wu
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  6. Chenggang Huang
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Correspondence to Chenggang Huang.

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Guo, J., Xu, C., Xue, R. et al. Cytotoxic activities of chemical constituents from rhizomes of Anemarrhena asphodeloides and their analogues. Arch. Pharm. Res. 38, 598–603 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12272-014-0431-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12272-014-0431-4

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