Cytotoxic effects of flavonoids from root of Sophora flavescens in cancer cells

Abstract

One new flavanonol 4 H-​1-​benzopyran-​4-​one,2-​(4-​hydroxyphenyl)​-​3,​7-​dihydroxy-​5-​methoxy-​8-​[5-​methyl-​2-​(1-​methylethenyl)​-​4-​hexenyl]​(21), and twenty-six known compounds 1–20, 22–27 were isolated from the dried root of Sophora flavescens (S. flavescens) in this chemical study. Their structures were elucidated according to the spectroscopic and spectrometric methods. All the isolated compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxicity against lung cancer A549 cells and colon cancer HCT116 cells. Among them, compound 21 showed relatively predominant cell proliferation inhibition effect on the two tumor cell lines. Moreover, it induced cells apoptosis as evidenced by the Annexin V/PI double staining assay as well as the increased cleaved-PARP expression. The aforementioned data indicated that the flavonoids of S. flavescens have potential anti-cancer effect.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Sophora flavescens
• flavonoids
• cytotoxicity
• apoptosis
• cancer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [NSFC 81673556, NSFC 81872980], the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Special Fund [Guangdong Natural Science Fund 2017A030313753], the Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Guangdong Province [2019205], the Research Fund of University of Macau (MYRG2018-00165-ICMS) and the Science and Technology Development Fund, Macau SAR (File no. 176/2017/A3).