Seven quassinoids from Fructus Bruceae with cytotoxic effects on pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines
1School of Chinese Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Abstract:
Our previous studies showed that the alcohol extract of the fruit of Brucea javanica (Fructus Bruceae) possessed significant cytotoxicity in pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines. A bioassay-guided fractionation and purification resulted in the isolation and characterization of seven quassinoids including brusatol, bruceine D, bruceine H, yadanzioside A, yadanzioside G, javanicoside C and bruceantinoside A. Among them, brusatol exhibited the most potent in vitro antipancreatic cancer action, with IC(50) values of 0.36 µm and 0.10 µm on PANC-1 and SW1990 cell lines, respectively. This is the first report on the antipancreatic adenocarcinoma activity of brusatol.