Planta Med 2013; 79 - PK2
DOI: 10.1055/s-0033-1348626

Anti- Cancer Cembranoids from the Red Sea Soft Coral Sarcophyton auritum

MM Radwan 1, 2, MA ElSohly 1, 3, NA Eltahawy 4, AK Ibrahim 4, HA Hassanean 4, SA Ahmed 4
  • 1National Center for Natural Products Research
  • 3Department of Pharmaceutics School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677, USA
  • 2Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Alexandria University, Egypt
  • 4Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Suez Canal University, 41522 Ismailia, Egypt

A chemical investigation of the Red Sea soft coral Sarcophyton auritum led to the isolation of two new cembranoid diterpene, namely 2-epi-sarcophine (1) and (1S,2E,4R,6E,8R,11S,12R)-2,6-cembradiene-4,8,11,12-tetraol (2) along with sarcophine (3) and (+)-7α,8β-dihydroxydeepoxysarcophine (4). Their cytotoxic activities were measured using the Sulpho-Rhodamine-B (SRB) assay on two human cell lines: HEPG2 (liver cancer cell line) and MCF7 (breast cancer cell line). Compounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 showed significant cytotoxic activity against liver cancer cell line with IC50 values of 18.4, 20, 22.4 and 19.7 µg/ml, respectively and against breast cancer cell line with IC50 values of 11.0, 21.1, 23 and 20.6 µg/ml, respectively.