Cell Growth Inhibition of Saponin XII from Dipsacus japonicus Miq. on Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells

Abstract

In previous studies, we isolated the known compound saponin XII from the roots of Dipsacus japonicus Miq. Here, we show that this compound reduced the number of acute myeloid leukemia OCI-AML3 cells as evaluated by a hemocytometer. Flow cytometry analyses demonstrated that the reported activity was associated with a significant increase of apoptosis and of cells in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle, with a decrease of cells in the S and G2/M phases. Thus, the inhibition of cell growth in OCI-AML3 cells was due to antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic effects. Interestingly, the bioactivity of saponin XII exerted its effect at a concentration as low as 1 µg/mL.

Dipsacus and Scabiosa Species—The Source of Specialized Metabolites with High Biological Relevance: A Review

“…The recommended daily dose is 10-20 g as a decoction, alcoholic maceration, powder, or pill [41]. Decoction of D. japonicus roots has been used in the traditional medicine of China and Vietnam for rheumatism, sprains, trauma, fractures, relieving joint pain and ostealgia, and hepatic and renal hypofunction [40,41]. D. japonicus is widespread in central and northern China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam [9,40].…”

“…Dipsacus and Scabiosa have closely related phytochemical profiles [75] and include over 200 specialized metabolites. Some representatives of Dipsacus and Scabiosa biosynthesize chemical compounds of various classes, mainly triterpenoid derivatives (Table 2) [5][6][7]12,21,22,27,40,48,49,51,65,66,81,82,[88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96], which possess a variety of bioactivities. In addition, iridoids [6,7,13,22,27,33,34,65,66,75,78,84,89,[92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100] (Table 3), phenolic acids [6,…”

“…maritima leaves were oleanolic acid-pentosyl-rhamnosyl-pentosyl-glucosyl-diglucoside, oleanolic acid-pentosyl-rhamnosyl-glucosyl-glucosyl-di-glucoside, and maslinic acid-pentosyl-rhamnosyl-glucosyl-glucosyl [81]. Yu et al [12,22,96] reported some new arborinane-type triterpenoid (25-acetoxy-28-dehydroxyrubiarbonone E), ursane-type triterpenoids (2α,3β,24-trihydroxy-23-norurs-12-en-28-oic acid and 2α,3β-dihydroxy-23-norurs-4(24),11,13(18)-trien-28-oic acid), and oleanane-type triterpenoids ( [40]. In addition, this species has presented the only example to date of japondipsaponin E1 [5,88].…”

“…Considerable attention has been noted regarding the cytotoxicity of Dipsacus and Scabiosa against various cancer cell lines including lung carcinoma A549, hepatoma Bel7402 and Hep3B, gastric carcinoma BGC-823, AGS, KATO III, MKN-45, and SNU-638, liver H157 and HepG2, colon cancer HCT-8, ovary cancer A2780, breast MCF-7, human breast cancer MCF-7 and MDB-MB-231, acute myeloid leukemia OCI-AML3, osteosarcoma HOS, or fibrosarcoma HT1080 cell lines. Some pure specialized metabolites of different classes identified in the plant extracts have also demonstrated potent or promising cytotoxic effects in vitro (Table 10) [11,12,40,48,56,75,81,89,90,96,[173][174][175]. An aqueous extract of D. asperoides roots inhibited the viability of human mammary carcinoma-derived triple negative MDA-MB-231 cells (with IC 50 = 15 µg/mL) and arrested the cell cycle in the G 2 /M phase; it also induced apoptosis by increasing pro-apoptotic caspase 3/7 activity and by suppressing the expression of BRAF, p-ERK, MEK, pPI3K, pAKT, and cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 in a dose-dependent manner [175].…”

“…The natural occurrence of Dipsacus and Scabiosa species as well as synonymous species names are described based on the data from The World Flora Online, Plants of the World Online, The Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and Flora of China [4,[8][9][10] (Table 1). People's Republic of China, Korea, central and south Japan, and Vietnam [9,40] Grassy slopes and roadsides, savannas; below 1000-2600 m [10,41] Roots are used in the traditional medicine of China and Vietnam as a remedy for relieving joint pain and inflammation [40] D. sativus (L.) Honc. [4,8,9] Fuller's Teasel (in English) [4] Europa (France, Italy), Caucasus [9] -Tea of leaves is used for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases [42] S. arenaria Forssk.…”