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Terpenoid composition and the anticancer activity of Acanthopanax trifoliatus

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Abstract

The petroleum ether and ethyl acetate fractions of extract from an edible and medicinal plant Acanthopanax trifoliatus were found to show significant inhibitory effects against SF-268, MCF-7, HepG2 and NCI-H460 cancer cells. Two new ursane-type triterpenoids, acantrifoic acid C (1) and acantrifoic acid D (2), along with five known triterpenoids (3–7) and eight known diterpenoids (8–15) were obtained from these two fractions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report concerning the isolation of compounds (5–12, 14, 15) from A. trifoliatus. Among all the isolated compounds, 3, 5 and 8 from the ethyl acetate fraction showed the strongest inhibitory effects against cancer cells, while 12 and 13 from the petroleum ether fraction showed moderate activities. These terpenoid compounds may be responsible for the anticancer activities of A. trifoliatus. Our study provides the first evidence that terpenoids from A. trifoliatus exert anticancer activities and indicates that A. trifoliatus may be a useful edible plant for further development of anticancer health supplement.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the 2011 Guangdong Province Leadership Grant, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (No. 2013M542154), and Guangdong Provincial Project for Science and Technology (No. 2012B020311009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical and Environment Engineering, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, 529020, People’s Republic of China

    Dong-Li Li & Kun Zhang

  2. Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research, Department of Chemical Biology, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

    Xi Zheng

  3. State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, Guangzhou, 510070, People’s Republic of China

    Yu-Chan Chen & Wei-Min Zhang

  4. Allan H. Conney Laboratory for Anticancer Research, School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, People’s Republic of China

    Sen Jiang, Yuan Zhang, Hua-Qian Wang, Zhi-Yun Du & Kun Zhang

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  1. Dong-Li Li
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Li, DL., Zheng, X., Chen, YC. et al. Terpenoid composition and the anticancer activity of Acanthopanax trifoliatus . Arch. Pharm. Res. 39, 51–58 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12272-015-0655-y

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