Objective: To investigate the chemical constituents of Euphorbia helioscopia and their antitumor activities.
Methods: Normal phase silica gel, RP-18 silica gel and Sephadex LH-20 column chromatographies combined with recrystallization were used to isolate and purify the constituents. Their structures were identifided by spectroscopic methods, including 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, ESI-MS and EI-MS. And the antitumor activities of some of chemical constituents in vitro were detected by sulphorhodamine B protein staining.
Results: Nine compounds were isolated and their structures were identified as euphohelioscopin A (1), euphoscopin (2), 9, 19-cyclolanost-23E-ene-3, 25-diol (3), euphoscopin C (4), euphornin A (5), euphoheliosnoid A (6), ent-kaurane-3-oxo-16beta, 17-diol (7), 9, 19-cyclolanost-25-ene-3beta, 22-diol (8) and helioscopinolide A(9) Compound 9 showed effect on inhibiting the cell proliferations of MCF-7 cell line.
Conclusion: Compounds 3, 7, 8 and 9 are obtained from this plant for the first time, and compound 9 shows the potential antitumor activity.