Sesquiterpene lactones from shoot culture of Artemisia aucheri with cytotoxicity against prostate and breast cancer cells

Plant tissue culture is used to grow plant cells, tissues, or organs under sterile and determined conditions on culture media. It is alternative to traditional vegetative propagation, and is applied as an effective technology for the production of valuable secondary metabolites. The Artemisia aucheri (A. aucheri) was obtained from shoot culture grown on MS (Murashige and Skoog 1962) medium. Shade-dried aerial parts of in vitro grown A. aucheri (50 g) were extracted with dichloromethane-acetone (90:10). The extract was submitted for isolation to sephadex gel chromatography and preparative thin layer chromatography, which resulted in identification of one known eudesmanolide named artemin or 2,5-dihydroxy-12, 6-eudesmanolide-4(15)-en for the first time in this plant. In cell cytotoxicity test, artemin showed cytotoxic activity against DU-145,LNCaP prostate cancer, and MCF-7 breast cancer cells with IC50 values of 82.2 ± 5.6, 89.1 ± 6.3 and 111.5 ± 6.7 μM , respectively. Artemin was more active against prostate cancer cells with approximately same cytotoxicity against LNCaP androstane dependent cells and DU 145 which is androstane independent.