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Cytotoxic Activities of Extracts and Compounds from Viscum coloratum and its Transformation Products by Rhodobacter sphaeroides

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Abstract

The bioassay-oriented fractionation of mistletoe crude extracts (MCEE) using 75% ethanol and culture products of mistletoe transformed by Rhodobacter sphaeroides, a photosynthetic bacterium (PSBT), revealed that the high cytotoxic activities were due to the petroleum ether extracts (PEs) and the acid-precipitated proteins from the aqueous extracts (AQs) of MCEE and PSBT. The isolated triterpenes may account for the activities of the PEs of MCEE and PSBT, respectively. Extraction of MCEE using petroleum ether led to the isolation of 3-epi-betulinic acid (1), betulonic acid (2), oleanolic acid (3), and β-amyrin acetate (4), while petroleum ether extraction of PSBT led to the isolation of 1,3,4,betulinic acid (5), erythrodiol (6), and (3β)-olean-12-ene-3,23-diol (7). The PE of PSBT exerted higher cytotoxicity than the PE of MCEE, which was due to the different triterpene contents of these two extracts. The cytotoxic activities of all compounds were tested, and the results revealed that compounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 contributed significantly to the cytotoxicities of both PEs. The AQ of the PSBT exerted almost the same cytotoxic activity and lower toxicity compared to the AQ of the MCEE. These findings indicate that mistletoe products biotransformed by R. sphaeroides could be used to treat cancers, since they have lower toxicities and higher antitumor activities compared to standard treatments.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Qingshan Li (School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shanxi Medical University, China) for his kind help. Financial support was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 30672621), the Shanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (grant no. 2006011099), the Provincial Key Technology R&D Program of Shanxi Province, China (grant no. 051081), and the National Key Technologies Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2001BA540C). This paper was extensive edited by a native English professional with science background at Elixigen Corporation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, 030001, People’s Republic of China

    Guan-E Yang, Bainian Chen & Jiankuan Li

  2. College of Life Science and Technology, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, People’s Republic of China

    Zhaoming Zhang, Jun Gong, Hongjun Bai, Yufen Wang & Baozhen Li

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  1. Guan-E Yang
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Yang, GE., Chen, B., Zhang, Z. et al. Cytotoxic Activities of Extracts and Compounds from Viscum coloratum and its Transformation Products by Rhodobacter sphaeroides . Appl Biochem Biotechnol 152, 353–365 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-008-8372-3

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