Chemical Composition and
Cytotoxic Activities of
Petroleum Ether Fruit Extract of Fruits
of Brucea javanica (Simarubaceae)
Zhiwei Su1,2,
Huijuan Huang3, Jinlian Li1,4,
Yuehui Zhu1, Riming Huang1 and
Samuel X Qiu1*
1Program for Natural Product
Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery, Key Laboratory
of Plant Resources Conservation and Sustainable
Utilization, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, 2University
of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, 3Guangdong
provincial Key Lab of Biotechnology for Plant
Development, South China Normal University, Guangzhou
510631, 4Chinese Academy of Science – Foshan
Biotech and Pharmaceutical Center, Foshan 528231,
People’s Republic of China.
*For correspondence:
Email:
sxqiu@scbg.ac.cn; Tel.: +86 20
3708 1190; Fax: +86 20 3708 1190
Received: 5 October 2012
Revised accepted: 29 June 2013
Tropical Journal of
Pharmaceutical Research, October 2013;
12(5):
735-742
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/tjpr.v12i5.11
Abstract
Purpose: To investigate the chemical
composition and antitumor activity of the petroleum
ether extract of the dried ripe fruits of Brucea
javanica.
Methods: The composition of petroleum ether
extract was analyzed by gas chromatography/mass
spectrometric (GC/MS) and their antitumor activities
were determined by MTT assay.
Results: GC/MS spectrometry results indicate
that the petroleum ether extract was a mixture of
esters, fatty acids, sterides, pregnanones, terpenes,
alkaloids, alkenes, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes and
other compounds. The results also revealed the
significant antitumor activity of the extract with IC50
of 9.14, 12.45, 15.15, 16.13, 22.26, and 27.97 μg/mL
against A549, CNE, MCF-7, NCI-H460, HepG2, and KB-3-1
cell lines, respectively.
Conclusion: The study establishes the chemical
composition and cytotoxic activity of the petroleum
ether extract of the plant fruits. There is need for
further investigations to isolate more potent compounds
and structurally modify the known compounds to retain
activity and lower toxicity and thus lead to the
possible development of Brucea javanica oil.
Keywords: Brucae javanica, Mass spectra,
Cytotoxic activity, Anti-tumour.
