Saponins antitumor activity

Shi B, Tang P, Hu X, Liu JO, Yu B (2005) OSW saponins Facile synthesis toward a new type of structures with potent antitumor activities. J Org Chem 70 10354—10367. 

Among their antitumor activity for leukemia HL-60 cells by a MTT assay on each 11 sample concentration of 10 pig/mL of six novel spirostanol saponins (15-20) and five novel furostanol saponins (21-25), percentage of cell growth inhibition (%) of ruscogenin 1-0- 0-a-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(l—>2)-3,4,6-tri-0-acetyl- 3-D-galactopyranoside 1 (18) was the highest 98.2%, followed by 82.5% for 26-0- 3-D-glucopyranosyl-22-0-methyl-(25R)-furost-5-ene-113,3 3,22(, 26-tetrol 1 -0-i 0-a-L-rhamnopyranosyl-( 1 —>2)-3,4,6-tri-O-... 

Wu, Q., Wang, Y, Guo, M. Triterpenoid Saponins from the seeds of Celosiae argentea and their anti-infahnmatory and antitumor activities. Chem. Pharm. Bull. 59(5), 666-671 (2011)... 

The scientific name of Chinese chives is Allium tuberosum Rottl. (Liliaceae). It is known as Jiucai in China and Nira in Japan. It is a perennial plant and both the leaves and the inflorescences are edible. It has also been used as an herbal medicine for many diseases. According to the dictionary of Chinese medicines, the leaves have been used for the treatment of abdominal pain, diarrhea, hematemesis, snakebite and asthma while the seeds are used as a tonic and aphrodisiac. In the present study, 39 compounds were isolated and identified from the ethanol extract of the seeds of Allium tuberosum. Among them, 23 are new compounds and include spirostanol saponins, furostanol saponins, cholesterol saponins and alkaloids. Their structures were identified by a combination of ESIMS, ID, and 2D-NMR (COSY, TOCSY, ROSEY, HMQC, and HMBC). The antitumor activities of some of these compounds will be discussed. 

Cancer-related and immunomodulating activities are among the most studied pharmacological properties of saponins in the last years. Several purified saponins extracted from plants were shown to be cytotoxic against a large panel of cancer cells and the efficiency of the antitumor compounds... 

Tiiterpenoid saponin exists widely in plants of Araliaceae, Campanulaceae, Polygalaceae, Leguminosae, Umbelliferae, etc. Tiiterpenoid saponin is consisted of triteipenoid sapogenins and saccharide chain. Tetracyclic and pentacyclic triteipenoid saponins are very common and showed extensive activity on immune system, cardiovascular system, even with antitumor effect. They have long been under study to elucidate their activity and mechanism, new structural compounds, and develop rapid and accurate analytical methods. The isolation of triterpenoid saponins is tedious due to their high polarity, and so is the structure identification due to the presence of more than three monosaccharides. New analytical tools and approaches have been developed for qualitative and quantitative analysis of triteipenoid saponins in food, medicinal plant and health care products. This chapter describes spectrophotometry, mass spectrometry, and chromatography coupled with different detector for triterpenoid saponin analysis in matrix. 

The in vivo antitumoral effect of Virgaureasaponin E (34) in the mouse tumor models (sarcoma 180 and DBA2/MC.SC-1 fibrosarcoma models) could be due, at least in part, to an immunostimulant activity [69]. The ability of virgaureasaponin E (34) to reduce the tumor size by stimulating the immune system could be a consequence of stimulated immune parameters detected in ex vivo assays (proliferation and phagocytosis of bone marrow macrophage cells, release of TNFa in the blood of mice treated with the saponin after EPS induction) [69]. 

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