Cytotoxicity and chemical profiling of the Red Sea soft corals Litophyton arboreum .

The objective of this research was to evaluate the cytotoxic activities of the fractions and isolated compounds of the soft corals Litophyton arboreum against A549, MCF-7 and HepG2 cell lines by MTT assay method, and to chemically investigate the various metabolites of its total extract using LC-HR-ESI-MS metabolomic profiling. The metabolomic profiling revealed the presence of various metabolites, mainly sesquiterpenes and steroids reported for the first time in L. arboreum. Additionally, eight compounds ( 1 - 8 ) have been isolated from the n -hexane-chloroform (1:1) fraction that exhibited noticeable activity towards A549, MCF-7 and HepG2 cell lines. The steroids ( 5 and 6 ), and the sesquiterpene ( 1 ) exerted noticeable activity against A549 cell line (IC ₅₀ 28.5 ± 4.4, 36.9 ± 2.9 and 67.3 ± 9.9 µM/mL, respectively) compared to etoposide as standard cytotoxic agent (IC ₅₀ 48.3 ± 7.6 µM/mL). Compound 6 also exhibited cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cell line (IC ₅₀ 55.3 ± 4.9 µM/mL).