Cytotoxic and Pro-apoptotic Activities of Sesquiterpene Lactones from Inula Britannica

In this study, five known sesquiterpene lactones (STL) with an α-methylene-γ-lactone motif, including two eudesmanolides, 1β-hydroxyalantolactone (1) and ivangustin (2), and three 1,10-seco-eudesmanolides, 1- O-acetylbritannilactone (3), 1,6- O, O-diacetylbritannilactone (4), and 6α- O(2-methylbutyryl)britannilactone (5) were isolated from the flower heads of the medicinal plant Inula britannica. Their structures were characterized by spectroscopic methods. X-ray data of 2 is reported for the first time. Among them, eudesmanolides 1 and 2 exhibited remarkable cytotoxicity against HEp2, SGC-7901 and HCT116 human cancer cell lines, comparable with etoposide (Vp-16) used as reference drug. Furthermore, treatment of HEp2 cells with 1 induced apoptosis associated with cleaved procaspase-3 and PARP. The biological assays carried out with normal cells (CHO) revealed that all sesquiterpenes were weakly selective against the cancer cell lines tested.