Chem. Pharm. Bull., 56(10),1459-1462, October 2008

Notes

Cytotoxic and Anti-oxidant Activities of Lanostane-Type Triterpenes Isolated from Poria cocos

Liang ZHOU,^a Yaochun ZHANG,^a Leslie Adell GAPTER,^a Hui LING,^a Rajesh AGARWAL,^b and Ka-yun NG^*,a

^a Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore; Building S4, 18 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543, Republic of Singapore: and ^b Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center; Denver, CO 80262, U.S.A. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: phalnky@nus.edu.sg

A new lanostane-type triterpene, 29-hydroxypolyporenic acid C (8), was isolated from the dried sclerotia of Poria cocos together with eight other known compounds pachymic acid (1), dehydropachymic acid (2), 3-acetyloxy-16α-hydroxytrametenolic acid (3), polyporenic acid C (4), 3-epi-dehydropachymic acid (5), 3-epi-dehydrotumulosic acid (6), tumulosic acid (7), and dehydrotumulosic acid (9). The compounds were identified by spectral analysis and comparison with spectroscopic data reported in the literatures. Although none of the nine (1 to 9) compounds showed promising antioxidant activity, 1 through 6 and 8 showed good cytotoxicity against human lung cancer cell line A549 and human prostate cancer cell line DU145. Interestingly, all these compounds exhibited better cytotoxicity towards A549 than DU145 cells.

Key words Poria cocos; lanostane; cytotoxicity; antioxidant; phytochemistry