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Background: With cancer being one of the major causes of death around the world, studies are ongoing to find new chemotherapeutic leads. There are common mechanisms for colorectal cancer (CRC) formation. Several are connected with oxidative stress-induced cell apoptosis and others are related to imbalanced homeostasis or intake of drugs/toxins. Plants that have been used for decades in folk and traditional medicine have been accepted as one of the commonest sources of discovered natural agents of cancer chemotherapy and chemoprevention. The aim was to study the antioxidant and chemopreventive effects of Strobilanthes crispus on colorectal cancer formation. Methods: Five groups of rats were injected subcutaneously with AOM, 15 mg/kg body weight, each once weekly for 2 weeks. The cancer group was continued on 10 % Tween-20 feeding for 8 weeks. The standard drug group was continued on 35 mg/kg 5-fluorouracil intraperitoneal injection twice a week for 8 weeks, and the experimental groups were continued on 250 and 500 mg/kg S. crispus extract oral feeding for 8 weeks, respectively. The normal group was injected subcutaneously with normal saline once a week for 2 weeks, followed by oral administration of 10 % Tween-20 for 8 weeks. All the rats were sacrificed after 10 weeks. The colons were evaluated grossly and histopathologically for aberrant crypt foci (ACF). Gene expression was performed for Bax, Bcl2, Defa24, Slc24a3, and APC genes by real-time PCR. S. crispus and its fractions were evaluated for their chemopreventive effects against human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line HT29 and cytotoxicity for normal human colon epithelial cell line CCD 841, and the active fraction was assessed for its components. Results: We observed significant decrease in total colonic ACF formation, malonaldehyde (MDA) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), increase in superoxide dismutase (SOD), up-regulation of APC, Bax and Slc24a3, and down-regulation of Defa24 and Bcl-2 in rats treated with Strobilanthes crispus. Conclusion: Our results support the in vivo protection of S. crispus against CRC formation (azoxymethane-induced aberrant crypt foci) and suggest that the mechanism is highly specific to protect from oxidative insults and the following apoptotic cascade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quinoxaline system in the title hydrate, C(15)H(13)N(3)·H(2)O, is roughly planar, the r.m.s. deviation for the 18 non-H atoms being 0.188 Å; this conformation features a short intra-molecular C-H⋯N(pyrazine) inter-action. In the crystal, the amine H atom forms an N-H⋯O hydrogen bond to the water mol-ecule, which in turn forms two O-H⋯N hydrogen bonds to the pyrazine N atoms of different organic mol-ecules. These inter-actions lead to supra-molecular arrays in the bc plane that are two mol-ecules thick; additional π-π inter-actions stabilize the layers [ring centroid-centroid distance = 3.5923 (7) Å]. The layers stack along the a-axis direction via C-H⋯π contacts.

There are two mol-ecules in the asymmetric unit of the title compound, C(14)H(10)ClN(3), with dihedral angles of 5.11 (10) and 13.61 (10)° between the aromatic ring systems. In the crystal structure, mol-ecules are linked by N-H⋯N hydrogen bonds, resulting in chains propagating in [010].