Microwave-assisted synthesis and antitumor activity of the supramolecular 1 complexes of betulin diacetate with arabinogalactan 2 3 Yuriy N. Malyar* 1,5 0000-0001-9380-0290, Mikhail A. Mikhailenko 2 0000-0002-1233-4 5225, Natalia A. Pankrushina 3 0000-0002-8104-478X, 5 Alexander N. Mikheev 4 , Ilia V. Eltsov 4 0000-0001-8290-6057, Svetlana A. Kuznetsova 1,5 6 Abstract 27 28 In this work, a water-soluble supramolecular complex was synthesized in an aqueous 29 suspension of betulin diacetate (BDA) and arabinogalactan (AG) upon microwave heating. 30 Microwave heating allows reducing the time required for the complex formation, compared 31 with conventional heating in a water bath. The specific effect of microwave irradiation on the 32 initial reagents and preparation of a supramolecular complex was studied. In contrast to 33 conventional heating, under microwave heating AG macromolecules may break into roughly 34 equal fragments when the temperature increases up to 100 o C. A change in the surface 35 morphology of BDA crystals under microwave heating of the suspension suggests that 36 microwave irradiation facilitates the dissolution of BDA in water. It has been shown that the 37 use of dimethylsulfoxide as a reaction medium for microwave heating led to a decrease in 38 BDA content in the product due to the inclusion of DMSO into AG macromolecules. The 39 BDA-AG complex was isolated from the microwave-heated aqueous solution, after water 40 evaporation, as a thin amorphous film, which exhibited antitumor activity against Ehrlich 41 ascites carcinoma cells and can be a promising material for pharmacological applications.42 43 Antitumor activity.45 46 51 Previously (Shakhtshneider et al. 2013), we reported on the mechanochemical 52 preparation of the composites of BDA with water-soluble polysaccharide arabinogalactan 53 (AG) (Fig. 2) possessing a higher solubility due to complex formation. The BDA-AG 54 complex was prepared also as a thin film isolated from an aqueous solution by water 55 evaporation. The BDA-AG composite films exhibited anti-cancer activity against lung 56 adenocarcinoma A549 cells, which was significantly higher than the activity of both pure 57 BDA and its physical and ball-milled mixtures with AG (Shakhtshneider et al. 2016). 58 59 126The 13 C{H} NMR spectra were recorded with a Bruker Avance III 500 spectrometer 127 (working frequencies 500.13 ( 1 Н) and 125.76 MHz ( 13 С)). The samples were dissolved in 128 deuterated water. An external sample of acetone/D 2 O was used as a standard for 13 C{H} data.
129Ball-milling was carried out in a SPEX 8000 mixer mill (CertiPrep Inc., USA) in a 130 stainless steel vial (60 mL) with steel balls (6 mm in diameter, total 30 g) for 15 min.
131Antitumor activity of the BDA-AG composite films was determined by estimating the 132 viability of Ehrlich carcinoma cells after 24 hours of incubation at 37 o C, 5% CO 2 with BDA-133 AG complex at the final concentration of 0.5 mg·mL -1 . Viability was estimated using trypan 134 blue in accordance with the standard manuf...