Volume 17, Issue 40, July - December, 2023

Anticancer activities of isoflavones from the Millettia thonningii plant and their synthetic derivatives

Owoare RB^1♦, Kingsford-Adaboh R¹, Appiah-Opong R², Nyarko AK², Osei E¹, Jaato BN¹, Hayibor KM¹, Reynisson I³, Ayine-Tora DM³

¹Department of Chemistry, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana
²Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana
³School of Chemical Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand

^♦Corresponding author
Department of Chemistry, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana

ABSTRACT

Three naturally isolated isoflavones (2, 4 and 5), two synthetically modified isoflavones (3 and 6) and four synthesised isoflavones (10, 12, 13 and 15) were tested in-vitro to access their activities against Chang liver (normal cell line), JURKAT (leukemia), MCF-17 (breast), HEP-G2 (liver), PC3 (prostate) and LNCap (prostate) cell lines. In the test against liver cancer, the synthetically modified isoflavone 3 was better than the curcumin (CUR) control with IC50 value of 5.14 μM. Synthesised isoflavone 12 showed promising activity against prostate cancer (PC3) (IC50 = 6.11 μM). Whereas intermediate 2,4-dihydroxydeoxybenzoin (10) showed appreciable to moderate activity against breast, liver and prostate (PC3) cancer cell lines (IC50 values of 14.59, 31.79 and 65.20 μM, respectively). By comparison, the synthesised isoflavones showed better activity than the naturally isolated isoflavones against the same cancer cell lines. These results could serve as the basis of a structure activity relationship (SAR) study to identify potential anticancer drug candidates, with improved biological properties based on the isoflavone scaffold.

Keywords: Anti-cancer, malignancies, Milletia thonningii, isoflavones

Drug Discovery, 2023, 17(40), e33dd1952

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi.v17i40.e33dd1952

Published: 14 November 2023