Amaryllidaceae alkaloids from the bulbs of Lycoris radiata with cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory activities.

Four new Amaryllidaceae alkaloids, (+)-1-hydroxy-ungeremine ( 1 ), (+)- 6β -acetyl-8-hydroxy-9-methoxy-crinamine ( 2 ), (+)-2-hydroxy-8-demethyl-homolycorine- α - N -oxide ( 3 ), (+) -N- methoxylcarbonyl-2-demethyl-isocorydione ( 4 ), together with two known compounds, (+)- 6β -acetyl-crinamine ( 5 ) and 8-demethyl-homolycorine- α - N -oxide ( 6 ) were isolated from the ethanol extract of the bulbs of Lycoris radiata . Structural elucidation of all the compounds were performed by spectral methods such as 1D and 2D ( 1 H– 1 H COSY, HMQC, and HMBC) NMR spectroscopy, in addition to high resolution mass spectrometry. All the isolated alkaloids were in vitro evaluated for their cytotoxic activities against eight tumor cell lines (BEN-MEN-1, CCF-STTG1, CHG-5, SHG-44, U251, BGC-823, HepG2 and SK-OV-3) and anti-inflammatory activities against Cox-1 and Cox-2. As a result, alkaloids 1 and 4 exhibited significant cytotoxic activities against all tested tumor cell lines except against BEN-MEN-1. Additionally, alkaloids 1 and 4 possessed selective inhibition of Cox-2 comparable with the standard drug NS-398 (> 90%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]