title: Cytotoxic agents from Terminalia arjuna.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Analytical Chemistry Division, Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, P.O. CIMAP, Lucknow, India.
authors.forename: Mohit
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saxena
authors.forename: Uzma
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Faridi
authors.forename: Rupal
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Darokar
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: Digvijai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Suaib
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Luqman
authors.forename: S P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Khanuja
mesh_terms: D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D006801:Humans; D015394:Molecular Structure; D029766:Terminalia / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic