Phenylpropanoids and lignoids from the whole plant of Vaccinium emarginatum and their cytotoxicity against prostate cancer cells

Abstract

One new naturally occurring quinone, 3′,4′-dihydroxy-1,2,6-trimethoxy-[1,1′-biphenyl]-4(1H)-one (1), one new diarylpropane, emarginone A (2), and one new neolignan, emarginone B (3), along with eighteen known compounds have been isolated from the chemical investigation of the EtOAc-soluble fraction of the Vaccinium emarginatum whole plant methanolic extract. The new structures were elucidated by combined analysis of spectroscopic analytical methods and comparison with the literature data obtained from known analogues. In addition, the cytotoxicity of compounds 2, 4, and 14–20 against Du145 and PC-3 prostate cancer cell lines using MTT cell proliferation assay was evaluated. Compounds 2 and 19 showed most potent cytotoxicity against Du145 with IC₅₀ values of 7.53 and 6.63 μg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, compounds 2, 17, and 19 also exhibited significant cytotoxicity against PC-3 with IC₅₀ values ranging from 3.44-6.64 μg/mL.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Vaccinium emarginatum
• quinones
• phenylpropanoids
• lignoids
• cytotoxicicty
• Du145
• PC-3

Acknowledgments

Mass spectrometric analyses were performed by the Proteomics Research Core Laboratory, Office of Research and Development at China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare Clinical Trial Center (MOHW107-TDU-B-212-123004) and “Chinese Medicine Research Center, China Medical University” from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan (CMRC-CHM-4).