Bioactive compounds of Eustephia aff. Coccinea from Cusco, Peru

OLIMPIA LLALLA-CORDOVA; JAVIER E. ORTIZ; GABRIELA E. FERESIN; LUNA, LORENA C.

San Juan

Congreso; XLI CONGRESO DE LA SOCIEDAD DE BIOLOGIA DE CUYO; 2023

SOCIEDAD DE BIOLOGIA DE CUYO

A large number of modern medicinal drugs are obtained from native plants as a source of bioactive molecules The Amaryllidaceae family is a large of group of 1100 species divided among 75 genera, which are used for floricultural-ornamental and medicinal purposes, their chemical composition has attracted research interest due to their wide range of biological and pharmacological activities. In Peru, 15 genera and 68 species belonging to the Amaryllidoideae have been reported in different types of forest, ranging from wet montane to dry, as well as the sandy biomes of the Pacific coastal region, with the greatest diversity in the south. Eustephia aff. coccinea is bulbus plant of the Amaryllidoideae subfamily of the family Amaryllidaceae is used to treat inflammation, bacterial and fungal infections. The aim of this study was to identify the bioactive compounds present in the E. aff. coccinea alkaloid extract by UPLC-MSMS and GC-MS analysis. This species was collected in the localities Tinta en Canchis, Cusco (Peru). Dry bulbs were chopped, dried, and subsequently subjected to the alkaloids extraction. In the case of GC-MS, alkaloid identification was performed using DB5-MS column and AMDIS 2.65 program with a private library of 300 alkaloids. For UPLC-MS, Acquity BEH C18 column, 1.7 µm, 2.1 mm x 100mm and MassLynx v4.2 (ChromaLynx) program with a private library of 40 alkaloids were used. The proportion of each alkaloid present in the extract was stablished according to the total ion current (TIC) showing Sternbergine (34,3%) and Haemanthamine (11.7%) as the most abundant identified alkaloids. Vittatine, 11,12-dehydroanhydrolycorine, Tazettine, Pseudolycorine, and Hippeastrine were also identified with relative proportions of 0.5, 0.5, 3.3, 1, and 0.8% of the TIC. It is known that Haemanthamine displays significant in vitro cytotoxic activity against several types of cancer cell lines, including MoltT-4, HepG2, HeLa, MCF7, CEM, K562, A549, Caco-2, HT-29, A2780, SW1573, and T47-D, whereas pseudolycorine showed antiviral effects on several RNAand DNA-containing viruses. To the best of our knowledge, there are no biological activities reported for sternbergine but, considering the structure similarities with pseudolycorine, it is probable that this alkaloid also exerts antiviral activity. Finally, E. aff. coccinea represents a valuable source of bioactive alkaloids with cytotoxic and antiviral activities.