Asterosaponins from the tropical starfish Acanthaster planci and their cytotoxic and anticancer activities in vitro

Abstract

New asterosaponin, acanthaglycoside G (1), along with three previously known steroidal oligoglycosides (2‒4), were isolated from the ethanolic extract of the starfish Acanthaster planci, collected off the coast of Vietnam. The structure of 1 was mainly elucidated by extensive NMR and ESIMS techniques as sodium 6-O-{β-D-fucopyranosyl-(1→2)-β-D-quinovopyranosyl-(1→4)-[β-D-quinovopyranosyl-(1→2)]-β-D-quinovopyranosyl-(1→3)-β-D-quinovopyranosyl}-6α-hydroxy-5α-pregn-9(11)-en-20-one-3β-yl sulfate. Compounds 3 and 4 showed slight cytotoxic activities against cancer RPMI-7951, HT-29, and MDA-MB-231 cell lines, but effectively inhibited in non-toxic concentrations colony formation of HT-29 and MDA-MB-231 cells and cell migration of MDA-MB-231 cells. Compounds 1 and 2 were inactive or less active, respectively.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Asterosaponin
• starfish
• Acanthaster planci
• cytotoxicity
• clonogenic assay

Acknowledgements

The study was carried out on the equipment of the Collective Facilities Center «The Far Eastern Center for Structural Molecular Research (NMR/MS) PIBOC FEB RAS».

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was partly supported by Grant No. 18-53-54002 Viet_a from RFBR (Russian Foundation for Basic Research), Grant No. VAST 18-003 from the FEB RAS (Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), and Grant of Viet Nam Academy of Science and Technology (QTRU02.03/18-19). The authors are grateful to Prof. Do Cong Thung (Institute of Environment and Marine Resources of the VAST, Hai Phong, Viet Nam) for species identification of the starfish.