1. Antiprotozoal Activity of Buxus sempervirens and Activity-Guided Isolation of O-tigloylcyclovirobuxeine-B as the Main Constituent Active against Plasmodium falciparum
- Author
-
JB Althaus, Marcel Kaiser, Reto Brun, Thomas J. Schmidt, Peter Winterhalter, and Gerold Jerz
- Subjects
Buxus ,Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense ,medicine.drug_class ,Buxus sempervirens ,Trypanosoma cruzi ,Plasmodium falciparum ,Antiprotozoal Agents ,Pharmaceutical Science ,Article ,Analytical Chemistry ,lcsh:QD241-441 ,Alkaloids ,Parasitic Sensitivity Tests ,lcsh:Organic chemistry ,Tandem Mass Spectrometry ,Drug Discovery ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Potency ,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry ,Cytotoxicity ,Chromatography ,cycloartane alkaloids ,biology ,Plant Extracts ,Alkaloid ,Organic Chemistry ,Extraction (chemistry) ,antiprotozoal activity ,spiral-coil countercurrent chromatography ,biology.organism_classification ,Triterpenes ,Buxaceae ,Malaria ,Rats ,Biochemistry ,Chemistry (miscellaneous) ,Leishmania donovani ,Antiprotozoal ,Molecular Medicine - Abstract
Buxus sempervirens L. (European Box, Buxaceae) has been used in ethnomedicine to treat malaria. In the course of our screening of plant extracts for antiprotozoal activity, a CH2Cl2 extract from leaves of B. sempervirens showed selective in vitro activity against Plasmodium falciparum (IC50 = 2.79 vs. 20.2 µg/mL for cytotoxicity against L6 rat cells). Separation of the extract by acid/base extraction into a basic and a neutral non-polar fraction led to a much more active and even more selective fraction with alkaloids while the fraction of non-polar neutral constituents was markedly less active than the crude extract. Thus, the activity of the crude extract could clearly be attributed to alkaloid constituents. Identification of the main triterpene-alkaloids and characterization of the complex pattern of this alkaloid fraction was performed by UHPLC/+ESI-QTOF-MS analyses. ESI-MS/MS target-guided larger scale preparative separation of the alkaloid fraction was performed by ‘spiral coil-countercurrent chromatography’. From the most active subfraction, the cycloartane alkaloid O-tigloylcyclovirobuxeine-B was isolated and evaluated for antiplasmodial activity which yielded an IC50 of 0.455 µg/mL (cytotoxicity against L6 rat cells: IC50 = 9.38 µg/mL). O-tigloylcyclovirobuxeine-B is thus most significantly responsible for the high potency of the crude extract.
- Published
- 2014