Planta Med 2011; 77 - PM49
DOI: 10.1055/s-0031-1282807

Trigona laeviceps propolis: Chemical compositions and antiproliferative activity on cancer cell lines

C Chanchao 1, S Umthong 1, P Phuwapraisirisan 2, S Puthong 3
  • 1Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Phya Thai Rd., Bangkok, 10330, Thailand
  • 2Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Phya Thai Rd., Bangkok, 10330, Thailand
  • 3Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Phya Thai Rd., Bangkok, 10330, Thailand

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and continue rising. Many cancer patients resisting to recent chemotherapeutic agents, so it is very important to search for new compounds with antitumor activity and develop to be anticancer drugs. Propolis of stingless bee (Trigona laeviceps) is focused in this research. It was extracted by 95% ethanol and partitioned through their polarities with 40% MeOH, CH2Cl2 and hexane. All parts were tested for antitumor activities against five tumor cell lines (Chago, KATO-III, SW620, BT474 and Hep-G2) by MTT assay. In addition, the cytotoxicity against two normal cell lines (Fibroblast and CH-liver) was performed by the same assay. Due to IC50 value, the hexane part had the highest antiproliferative activity and the lowest cytotoxicity on normal cell lines. The hexane part was therefore purified next by quick column chromatography. Eight fractions (100HEX, 10DCM, 30DCM, 50DCM, 70DCM, 100DCM, 5MET and 10MET) were obtained. After MTT assay, the most effective fractions were 30DCM and 100DCM. Both were separately purified by size exclusion chromatography, yielding totally 8 fractions (30DCM-F1, 30DCM-F2, 30DCM-F3, 30DCM-F4, 100DCM-F1, 100DCM-F2, 100DCM-F3 and 100DCM-F4). After MTT assay, 30DCM-F3 fraction was the most potential one. An attempt to identify active compounds, using spectroscopic techniques is under investigation. In conclusion, it presents that T. laeviceps propolis prone to have active compounds which are not only effective in antiproliferation on cancer cell lines, but also nontoxic to normal cell lines. In the future, the expected active compound would be a template for anticancer-drug developing program.

Keywords: Trigona laeviceps propolis, Bioassay-guided isolation, MTT assay, Chromatography, Spectroscopy

Acknowledgement: We thank the National Research Council of Thailand, the Asahi Glass Foundation, the Thai Government Stimulus Package 2 (TKK2555), under the Project for Establishment of Comprehensive Center for Innovative Food, Health Products and Agriculture, the Ratchadapisek Somphot Endowment Fund (AG001B), and the Higher Education Research Promotion and National Research University Project of Thailand, Office of the Higher Education Commission for financial supports.