Avaliação da atividade citotóxica in vitro de uma benzoisoquinolina isolada de Mitracarpus baturitensis SUCRE (Rubiaceae)

Abstract

Quinones represent one of the most important classes of compounds used in clinical oncology, and they are natural products easily found in the nature. They have been distributed in three groups (anthraquinones, benzoquinones and naphthoquinones). This study investigated the cytotoxic activity and anticancer mechanism of action of a compound belonging to the benzoquinone group, called FR42 (benz [g] isoquinoline-5 ,10-dione) in human glioblastoma cells (SF-295). First of all, it was performed the cytotoxicity assay on a panel of four cancer cell lines, and the FR42 showed high toxicity to all cancer cells tested, exhibited IC50 between 1.70 to 2.45 mM. In order to the cytotoxicity assay performed on normal cells showed IC50 between 12.18 to 23.27 mM, there was a slight selectivity for tumor cells. Flow cytometry studies performed in SF-295 cells has been suggested that the compound FR42 in the highest concentration tested, induced cell death by apoptosis as evidenced by DNA fragmentation and depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane. FR42 lowest concentration tested (2 mM) presented interference in the cell cycle promoting arresting of cells in G2 / M. The results has been indicated the a notable toxicity from FR42 in cancer cells lines.