A New Cytotoxic Ceramide from Dalbergia boehmii Taub. Stem Bark

Abstract

Background: Dalbergia boehmii (Leguminosae), is a medicinal plant used in the Northen part of Cameroon, against digestive tract diseases and fever. Objectives: This work which is part of the search for bioactive molecules through natural products, aimed to isolate, characterize and evaluate the cytotoxicity of compounds from D. boehmii. Materials and Methods: Chemical investigations were carrying out on stem barks of Dalbergia boehmii using chromatographic techniques. Structures elucidation of isolated compounds were done using 1D and 2D NMR as well as EI-MS and literature data. Some isolated compounds were evaluated in vitro against MCF-7 cell lines for their cytotoxicity activity, using the MTT colorimetric method. Results: The chemical investigation leaded to the isolation of a new ceramide derivative named Dalbergiamide (1), a triterpene identified as olean-12-ene-3,11-dione (2) isolated here for the first time from Dalbergia genus, along with two known compounds, glucoside 3-O-β-D-sitosterol (3) and glucoside 3-O-β-D-stigmasterol (4). Compounds 1 and 2 were found to be cytotoxic at 50 μM with IC 50 value of 17.13 μM and 35.52 ± 2.95 μM respectively. Conclusion: These promising results suggested more in-depth studies should be carried out on this plant in order to assess its potential in the fight against cancer.