Cucurbitacins from the Leaves of Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad

Rachid Chawech (1, 2) , Raoudha Jarraya (2) , Cynthia Girardi (1) , Marieke Vansteelandt (1) , Guillaume Marti (1) , Imen Nasri (2, 3) , Claire Racaud-Sultan (3) , Nicolas Fabre (1)

1 PHARMA-DEV - Pharmacochimie et Biologie pour le Développement
2 FSS - Faculté des Sciences de Sfax
3 CPTP - Centre de Physiopathologie Toulouse Purpan

Two new tetracyclic cucurbitane-type triterpene glycosides were isolated from an ethyl acetate extract of Citrullus colocynthis leaves together with four known cucurbitacins. Their structures were established on the basis of their spectroscopic data (mainly NMR and mass spectrometry). Evaluation of the in vitro cytotoxic activity of the isolated compounds against two human colon cancer cell lines (HT29 and Caco-2) and one normal rat intestine epithelial cell line (IEC6), revealed that one of the isolated compounds presented interesting specific cytotoxic activity towards colorectal cell lines.

Mots clés: Citrullus colocynthis; cucurbitacins; cytotoxicity.; cytotoxicity

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Rachid Chawech, Raoudha Jarraya, Cynthia Girardi, Marieke Vansteelandt, Guillaume Marti, et al.. Cucurbitacins from the Leaves of Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad. Molecules, 2015, 20 (10), pp.18001-18015. ⟨10.3390/molecules201018001⟩. ⟨hal-03216139⟩