Study On The Anticancer Constituents From The Roots Of Goniothalamus Griffithii

In order to look for new antitumor agents from plant resources, Goniothalamus griffithii Hook. f. et Thoms, a species of Goniothalamus genus (Annonaceae) growing in Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China, was subjected to phytochemical and antitumor studies. 38 compounds were isolated from the alcohol extract of the rhizomes of the title plant, including 13 new compounds, most of them were styryllactones and alkaloids. Their structures and some of the stereochemistry were elucidated by means of various modern spectroscopic techniques and chemical methods.Among the new compounds, there were 6 dimers of styryllactones and dihydroflavanones named griffithicin A-E (1-6), which were the first styryllactone dimers discovered from the Goniothalamus (Annonaceae). The other new compounds were 4 styryllactones with known skeleton named as 7-acetylgoniopypyrone (7), 5-acetylgoniopypyrone (8), 8-acetylgoniofufurone (9) and epi-goniodiol (10) as well as 3 new alkaloids named as griffithazanone (11), griffithinam (12) and griffithdione (13)。The known compounds isolated from G. griffithii were goniothalamin (14), goniothalenol (15), (+)isoalthalactone (16), goniodiol (17), goniodiol-7-monoacetate (18), goniodiol-8-monoacetate (19), diacetylgoniodiol (20), goniotnol (21), goniotriol-8-monoacetate (22), goniobutenolide A (23), goniobutenolide B (24), goniopypyrone (25), 9-deoxygoniopypyrone (26), leiocarpin (27), goniofufurone (28), velutinam (29), aristololactam AII (30), aristololactam BI (31), aristololactams BII (32), 4-methyl-2,9,10-(2H)-1-azaanthracenetrione (33), norcepharanone B (34), (-) pinocembrin (35), naringenin (36), β-sitosterol (37) and daucosterol (38) 。The anticancer test in vitro against human tumor cell lines indicated that most of the styryllactones and alkaloids from the roots of G. griffithii showed cytotoxic activity against KB, Bel, HCT, A2780 and MCF human tumor cells at different level and showed some selectivity on certain human tumor cell lines, and thus were responsible for the bioactivity of the plant.