Cytotoxic screening of plants from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest has led to the identification of Casearia arborea and Sorocea hilarii as sources of antitumor compounds

Abstract

In the present study, we have evaluated the cytotoxic activity of 282 extracts from 72 native plant species of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome. As a result, Casearia arborea and Sorocea hilarii leaves extracts showed cytotoxic activity against three tumour cell lines tested (B16F10, SW480 and Jurkat). After bioassay-guided fractionation, the bioactive fractions were submitted to the dereplication study via High-performance Liquid Chromatography, connected to High-resolution Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-QTOF/MS) analysis, combined with a Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) tool. A combination of bioactivity-guided and dereplication approaches resulted in the putative annotation of 27 clerodane diterpenes and 9 flavonoids as main compounds present in the cytotoxic fractions of C. arborea. Regarding the active fraction of S. hilarii, 10 megastigmans, 17 spirostane steroids derivatives and 2 lignans were putatively identified. In conclusion, Casearia arborea and Sorocea hilarii are potential sources of antitumor compounds.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Cytotoxic
• dereplication
• GNPS
• Casearia arborea
• Sorocea hilarii

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) for the financial support for the development of this work. The authors also thank CAPES, for the doctoral scholarship of L.A.R.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.