The isolation of novel pregnane steroids from Aglaia pachyphylla Miq. and the cytotoxicity against breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7)

Abstract

Steroid groups isolated from many plants are known to play a significant role in various biological systems. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze two novel pregnane steroids, pachylenone A (1) and pachylenone B (2), isolated from Aglaia pachyphylla Miq. The cytotoxicity of the steroids was evaluated against MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines with other known steroid compounds, namely 5α-dihydroprogesterone (3), GSD-8 (4), trans-5α-pregn-l7(20)-en-3,16-dion (5), 20β-hydroxy-5αH-pregnan-3-one (6), 3β-hydroxy-5α-pregnan-20-one (7), aglaiasterol B (8), and 2β,3β-dihydroxypregnan-16-one (9). Meanwhile, structural elucidation was achieved through different spectroscopic methods including one and two-dimensional NMR, as well as mass spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations (TD-DFT and NMR DP4+ probability). The cytotoxic effects of steroid compounds (1–9) on MCF-7 lines were also examined. The results showed that compound 8 had the strongest activity with an IC₅₀ value of 228 μM, followed by compound 6 (IC₅₀ 568,76 μM), and pachylenone A (1) (IC₅₀ 768.73 μM). As a recommendation for future research, other activities of these compounds should be evaluated.