Planta Med 2006; 72 - S_005
DOI: 10.1055/s-2006-949738

Antitumor activity of Ailanthus excelsa (Roxb.)

A Said 1, H Tokuda 2, A Farag 3, A Huefner 4, K Rashed 1
  • 1Department of Pharmacognosy, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt
  • 2Department of Biochemistry, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, kyoto 602–0841, Japan
  • 3Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt
  • 4Institute for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology, University of Graz, Schubertstr.1, A8010 Graz, Austria

In our search for antitumor agents from natural sources, we have assayed the antitumor activity of canthin-6-one isolated from chloroform fraction of methanol (70%) of Ailanthus excelsa (Roxb) stem bark of the Egyptian origin as will as successive extracts. The chloroform extract showed strong inhibitory effect on short term in vivo assay for antitumor promoters, Epstein-Barr virus early antigen (EBV-EA) induction assay [1], compared with other fractions petroleum ether, diethyl ether and methanol (70%). Canthin-6-one also showed the strong activity on this assay against TPA induction. Moreover, these useful materials were investigated for the inhibitory effects in two–stage mouse skin carcinogenesis test. Chloroform extract and its active compound canthin-6-one decrease actually the average number of papillomas per mouse and percent papillomas in the promoting stage. These materials were found to exhibit the excellent anti-tumor promoting activity in the in vivo carcinogenesis test [2]. This study provides relevant information regarding the development of the biological effects of alkaloids.

References: 1. Kubota et al. (1997), Cancer Lett. 113: 165–168. 2. Henle, G., Henle, W. (1966), J. Bacteriol. 91: 1248–1256.