Cytotoxic agents from Terminalia arjuna.
Although a number of chemicals have been isolated from Terminalia arjuna, only a few have been evaluated for their biological significance. As a part of our drug discovery programme for cytotoxic agents from Indian medicinal plants, four novel cytotoxic agents arjunic acid (1), arjungenin (2), arjunetin (3) and arjunoglucoside I (4) were isolated from the bark of T. ARJUNA. Out of the four compounds, arjunic acid (1) was significantly active against the human oral (KB), ovarian (PA 1) and liver (HepG-2 & WRL-68) cancer cell lines. Further, the most active compound arjunic acid was converted into seven semi-synthetic ester derivatives 5 - 11. 2-O-Palmitoyl arjunic acid (6) showed two times more activity, while 2, 3-di-O-acetyl-, 2-O-p-anisoyl-, 2, 3-di-O-benzoyl- and 2, 3-di-O-p-nitrobenzoyl arjunic acid (7 - 10) showed 1.7 - 2.3 times less activity than the cytotoxic drug vinblastine against the liver cancer cell lines HepG-2 and WRL-68 respectively.
Saxena
Mohit
M
Analytical Chemistry Division, Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, P.O. CIMAP, Lucknow, India.
Faridi
Uzma
U
Mishra
Rupal
R
Gupta
M M
MM
Darokar
M P
MP
Srivastava
S K
SK
Singh
Digvijai
D
Luqman
Suaib
S
Khanuja
S P
SP
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D006801:Humans; D015394:Molecular Structure; D029766:Terminalia / Q000737:chemistry*
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic