TITLE:
Cytotoxic Effect of Methanol Extracts and Partitions of Two Mexican Desert Plants against the Murine Lymphoma L5178Y-R
AUTHORS:
Ramiro Quintanilla-Licea, Ricardo Gomez-Flores, Mario Ángel Samaniego-Escamilla, Humberto Carlos Hernández-Martínez, Patricia Tamez-Guerra, Rolando Morado-Castillo
KEYWORDS:
Anticancer Plants, Cactaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Mexican Medicinal Plants, Extracts, Partitions
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.7 No.11,
August
3,
2016
ABSTRACT: Pachycereus marginatus (DC.) Britton & Rose and Ibervillea sonorae (S. Watson) Greene have been used in the Mexican
traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases, including cancer. The
present study aims to investigate the cytotoxic activity of these plants against
a murine lymphoma. Soxhlet extraction of dried and powdered plant material was performed
with methanol. Also, a further partitioning of these methanolic extracts with hexane
and ethyl acetate was achieved. The in vitro cytotoxic activity against the murine
lymphoma L5178Y-R cell line was assessed via the colorimetric MTT assay. The methanol extract from P. marginatus exhibited high
cytotoxic activity (up to 94%) at concentrations ranging from 3.9 to 500 μg/mL;
however, hexane and ethyl acetate partitions from this methanolic extract showed
lower but significant (p I. sonorae also showed significant (p cells at concentrations ranging from 7.81 to 500 μg/mL
(methanolic extract up to 63% at 500 μg/mL; hexane partition up to 76% at
250 μg/mL; ethyl acetate partition up to 73% at 500 μg/mL). These results demonstrate
that the methanol extracts and partitions from P. marginatus and I. sonorae possess significant cytotoxic activity against the murine lymphoma L5178Y-R and
validate the ethnobotanical use of these plants for the treatment of diseases consistent
with cancer symptomatology. Previous scientific reports describe the isolation of
isoquinoline alkaloids of P. marginatus as well as cucurbitacins from I. sonorae, phytochemicals that could be responsible for their observed
cytotoxic activity in this research. The direct extraction with methanol of medicinal
plants allows extracting of both high and low-polarity compounds, contrary to the
simple extraction with water that only allows obtaining compounds of high polarity.
The subsequent partition of the methanol extract with a solvent of low polarity
(hexane) and another of medium polarity (ethyl acetate) allows making a preliminary
fractionation of the bioactive molecules present in the plant that will facilitate
the bioguided chromatographic isolation of the pure compounds
responsible for the biological activity of the plant.