Anthraquinones with potential antiproliferative activities from the fruits of Morinda citrifolia

Abstract

The phytochemical investigation on the fruits of Morinda citrifolia led to the isolation and characterization of a new anthraquinone, moricitrifone (1), along with seven known anthraquinones (2–8). The chemical structure of 1 was elucidated by extensive spectral analyses. The known compounds (2–8) were identified by comparing their spectral data with those reported in the literature. The antiproliferative activities of all isolated anthraquinones (1–8) against five human cancer cell lines: HL-60, SMMC-7721, A-549, MCF-7 and SW480 were evaluated in vitro. Compounds 1–8 exhibited remarkable antiproliferative activities with IC₅₀ values ranging from 0.26 ± 0.05 to 16.58 ± 0.18 μM, which were comparable to those of doxorubicin.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Morinda citrifolia
• anthraquinones
• moricitrifone
• antiproliferative activities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Key Research and Development Project of Hainan Province (Nos. ZDYF2019116 and ZDYF2019049), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21967008, 22067005 and 32070390), the Natural Science Foundation of Hainan Province (Nos. 2019RC198 and 220RC596) and the Key Research and Development Project of Haikou (Nos. 2020054 and 2017050).