The camphor tree, Cinnamomum camphora (L.) Nees et Eberm., is a major environmental weed in parts of eastern Australia, particularly in northeastern New South Wales. It occurs in this region in two chemotypic forms, discriminated on the basis of leaf oil: camphor and 1,8-cineole. Oil was extracted from various parts of trees of each of these chemotypes: leaf, fruit, branch, trunk and root. Analysis of the oil revealed that, for the camphor-type, camphor content was greater in leaves than in other tree parts, where cineole and safrole were also present in substantial proportions; and, for the cineole-type, 1,8-cineole, which with lesser quantities of sabinene and citronellol dominated the leaf oil, is reduced in significance in the trunk where camphor is also an important constituent.
Bioactivity-guided fractionation of an ethanolic extract of the rhizome of Pleuranthodium racemigerum, a tropical Zingiberaceae species from Northeastern Australia, resulted in the isolation and structural elucidation of 1-(4''-methoxyphenyl)-7-(4'-hydroxyphenyl)-(E)-hept-2-ene (1), a new diarylheptanoid related to curcumin. Compound 1 was a fairly potent inhibitor of prostaglandin E(2) production in 3T3 murine fibroblasts (IC(50) approximately 34 microM) and also displayed moderate cytotoxicity against this cell line (IC(50) = 52.8 microM). The compound also demonstrated cytotoxic activity against the P388D1 murine lymphoblast cell line (IC(50) = 117.0 microM) and four human cell lines: Caco-2 colonic adenocarcinoma (IC(50) = 44.8 microM), PC3 prostate adenocarcinoma (IC(50) = 23.6 microM), HepG2 hepatocyte carcinoma (IC(50) = 40.6 microM), and MCF7 mammary adenocarcinoma (IC(50) = 56.9 microM). The cytotoxicity of compound 1 closely resembled that of curcumin, in terms of both IC(50) values and dose-response curves.
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