Planta Med 2014; 80 - PB5
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1382371

Antitumor metabolites from the Red Sea sponge Spheciospongia vagabunda

EE Eltamany 1, MM Radwan 2, 3, AK Ibrahim 1, M ElSohly 2, 4, HA Hassanean 1, SA Ahmed 1
  • 1Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Suez Canal University, 41522 Ismailia, Egypt
  • 2National Center for Natural Products Research, School of Pharmacy, The University of Mississippi, MS 38677, USA
  • 3Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
  • 4Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677

Several extracts of Egyptian marine organisms from the Red Sea were screened for their anticancer activity using Sulpho-Rhodamine-B (SRB) assay. The results indicated that the extracts of the sponge Spheciospongia vagabunda possessed anticancer activity against HepG2 (liver cancer cell line) and MCF-7 (breast cancer cell line) with IC50s of 28.1 and 19.7 µg/ml respectively. Bioactivity-guided fractionation of S. vagabunda methanolic extract led to the isolation of three new ceramides; N-[((2S,3S,4R)-1,3,4-trihydroxytetradecan-2-yl] tridecanamide (1), (R)-2'-hydroxy-N-[(2S,3S,4R)-1,3,4-trihydroxypentacosan-2-yl] octadecanamide (2) and (R,Z)-2'-hydroxy-N-[(2S,3S,4R)-1,3,4- trihydroxytricosan-2-yl) nonadec-10-enamide (3). Compounds 1, 2 and 3 displayed high potential cytotoxicity against HepG2 (IC50s 48.3, 17.2, and 14.5 µg/ml, respectively) and MCF-7 (45.6, 18.7, and 20.3 µg/ml, respectively) compared to cisplatin as control drug.

Fig. 1