Planta Med 2012; 78 - PI383
DOI: 10.1055/s-0032-1321070

Phytochemical investigations of Euphorbia piscatoria

M Reis 1, A Paterna 1, MJU Ferreira 1
  • 1Research Institute for Medicines and Pharmaceutical Sciences (iMed.UL), Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon, Av. Prof. Gama Pinto, 1649–003, Lisbon, Portugal

Euphorbia species are commonly named as spurge due to the use of the plant latex as purgative in traditional medicine. Additionally, they are also used to treat tumors and warts. Plants from this genus are able to synthetize a unique profile of diterpenes. Many of these compounds have shown interesting biological activities, making them promising leads for drug discovery. Compounds with tigliane, ingenane and daphanane skeletons have been associated with toxicity and skin-tumor promotion. On the other hand, jatrophane and lathyrane-type macrocycle diterpenes are non-irritant, being effective as anti-tumor agents by multidrug resistance reversion and apoptosis induction. Moreover, the polycyclic diterpenes with the ent-abietane skeleton showed to have anti-proliferative activity against resistant cancer cells. The aerial parts of Euphorbia piscatoria Ait., an endemic species from Madeira archipelago, have been investigated. From the methanolic extract, the following diterpenes were isolated: four with the lathyrane skeleton, five ent-abietane lactones and one with the ent-atisane skeleton. Furthermore, one triterpene and several phenolic compounds were isolated. The structures of the compounds were characterized by spectroscopic methods mainly1D NMR (1H, 13C, DEPT) and 2D NMR (COSY, HMBC, HMQC, NOESY).