Publication details
Benzophenanthridine alkaloid macarpine – biological effects and plant sources
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-0034-1395096 |
| Description | Plants with quaternary benzophenanthridine alkaloids (QBAs) are used for a long time in traditional Chinese medicine for analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antiedemic, depurative or diuretic properties. Wide range of effects of these plants had increased the number of studies in the biochemistry or pharmacology in recent years. A great deal of attention is devoted to the main alkaloids sanguinarine and chelerythrine. Besides these commercially available and well-known alkaloids, there are also minor alkaloids such as macarpine (MA) with limited information about its properties in literature. Among the rare QBAs, MA was reported as a promising fluorescent probe for cell nuclei labelling as well as for cell cycle visualisation in fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. We have previously described strong antiproliferative effects of MA on several cancer cell lines, but this is the first documentation of their effect on malignant melanoma cells. Taking into account all the biological activities of quaternary benzophenanthridine alkaloids highlight their further application in cancer biology and therapy studies and justify the continuation in the research of MA that is dependent on the isolation of alkaloids from plants sources. |