Affiliations 

  • 1 EMAN Research and Testing Laboratory, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
  • 2 Advanced Medical and Dental Institute (IPPT), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
  • 3 School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
  • 4 Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
PLoS One, 2014;9(6):e90806.
PMID: 24608571 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090806

Abstract

Tephrosia apollinea is a perennial shrublet widely distributed in Africa and is known to have medicinal properties. The current study describes the bio-assay (cytotoxicity) guided isolation of (-)-pseudosemiglabrin from the aerial parts of T. apollinea. The structural and stereochemical features have been described using spectral and x-ray crystallographic techniques. The cytotoxicity of isolated compound was evaluated against nine cancer cell lines. In addition, human fibroblast was used as a model cell line for normal cells. The results showed that (-)-pseudosemiglabrin exhibited dose-dependent antiproliferative effect on most of the tested cancer cell lines. Selectively, the compound showed significant inhibitory effect on the proliferation of leukemia, prostate and breast cancer cell lines. Further studies revealed that, the compound exhibited proapoptotic phenomenon of cytotoxicity. Interestingly, the compound did not display toxicity against the normal human fibroblast. It can be concluded that (-)-pseudosemiglabrin is worthy for further investigation as a potential chemotherapeutic agent.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.