Author
Kit-Lam Chan, Chee-Yan Choo, Noor Rain Abdullah, Zakiah Ismail
Journal
Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Volume
92
Issue ID
2-3
Page
223-227
Date
June 2004
Keyword
Antimalarial activity; Plasmodium falciparum lactate dehydrogenase; Cytotoxicity; Eurycoma longifolia; Quassinoids; Alkaloid
Abstract
The roots of Eurycoma longifolia Jack have been used as traditional medicine to treat malaria. A systematic bioactivity-guided fractionation of this plant was conducted involving the determination of the effect of its various extracts and their chemical constituents on the lactate dehydrogenase activity of in vitro chloroquine-resistant Gombak A isolate and chloroquine-sensitive D10 strain of Plasmodium falciparum parasites. Their antiplasmodial activity was also compared with their known in vitro cytotoxicity against KB cells. Four quassinoids, eurycomanone (1), 13,21-dihydroeurycomanone (3), 13α(21)-epoxyeurycomanone (4), eurycomalactone (6) and an alkaloid, 9-methoxycanthin-6-one (7), displayed higher antiplasmodial activity against Gombak A isolate but were less active against the D10 strain when compared with chloroquine. Amongst the compounds tested, 1 and 3 showed higher selectivity indices obtained for the cytotoxicity to antiplasmodial activity ratio than 14,15β-dihydroxyklaineanone (2), eurycomanol (5), 6 and 7.
Language
English
Link
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874104001023
