Croton membranaceus is used by herbalists and traditional healers in Ghana for the management of various cancers, especially prostate cancers. A methanolic extract of the roots showed cytotoxic activities against two cancer cell lines, and bioassay-guided fractionation of this extract revealed that the cytotoxic activity resided mostly in the ethyl acetate fraction. Six compounds were isolated from this fraction, including a new furano-clerodane diterpenoid (1), for which the trivial name crotomembranafuran is suggested. This compound exhibited an IC50 value of 4.1 μg/mL (10.6 μM) against human prostate (PC-3) cells, providing some support for the traditional use of C. membranaceus in the treatment of cancers.
BayorMT. (2008) The Anticancer and other Bioactivity Investigations on the Extract and Some Compounds of Croton membranaceus (Euphorbiaceae); Ph.D. dissertation, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana.
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12.
MosmannT. (1983) Rapid colorimetric assay for cellular growth and survival: Application to proliferation and cytotoxicity assays. Journal of Immunological Methods, 65, 55–63.
