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In vitro activity of dietary flavonol congeners against human cancer cell lines

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Abstract

Background

Flavonoids have physiological activity and a variety of pharmacological properties, including anticancer activity in vitro, but structure–anticancer activity relationships are unclear.

Aim

The objectives of this work were to investigate the activity of dietary flavonol congeners against cell lines derived from human solid tumours and to examine whether the in vitro activity was associated with specific structural feature(s) of the molecules.

Methods

Antiproliferative activity of the flavonol congeners was investigated against eight different human cancer cell lines representing different types of human solid tumour, using the sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay in accordance with the instructions published by the NCI. Cell cycle perturbations caused by the congeners were monitored by flow-cytometric analysis of DNA stained with propidium iodide.

Results

Most of the flavonols examined had weak antiproliferative and cytotoxic activity. Of all the flavonol congeners tested peracetylated tiliroside found to be the most powerful, with significant antiproliferative and cytotoxic activity. Most flavonols induced similar cell cycle perturbations, whereas induction of apoptosis was significant only for cells treated with peracetylated tiliroside.

Conclusions

These findings indicated that the –OH groups of aromatic ring B were not linked to the cytotoxic and antiproliferative activity of the tested flavonols whereas peracetylation of the glycosides resulted in moderate improvement. In contrast, acetylation of tiliroside esterified with coumaric acid at position 5 of the sugar moiety greatly improved the activity of this congener. Overall, the results of this study suggest a critical role of sugar moiety substituents in the anticancer activity of the flavonols.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pharmacology-Pharmacotechnology, Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, 11527, Athens, Greece

    Chrisiida Tsimplouli, Panayotis Pantazis & Konstantinos Dimas

  2. Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, School of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Panepistimioupolis, Zografou, 15771, Athens, Greece

    Costas Demetzos

  3. Department of Genetics, Development and Molecular Biology, Laboratory of Developmental Biology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Margarita Hadzopoulou-Cladaras

  4. Laboratory of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, Biopolis, Larisa, Greece

    Konstantinos Dimas

Authors
  1. Chrisiida Tsimplouli
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  2. Costas Demetzos
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  3. Margarita Hadzopoulou-Cladaras
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  4. Panayotis Pantazis
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  5. Konstantinos Dimas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Konstantinos Dimas.

Additional information

This work is part of C. Tsimplouli’s Thesis.

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Tsimplouli, C., Demetzos, C., Hadzopoulou-Cladaras, M. et al. In vitro activity of dietary flavonol congeners against human cancer cell lines. Eur J Nutr 51, 181–190 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-011-0204-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-011-0204-5

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