In-vitro antiproliferative effects on human tumour cell lines of extracts and jacaranone from Senecio leucanthemifolius Poiret.

We have studied the cytotoxic activity of extracts and jacaranone from Senecio leucanthemifolius Poiret. Extracts from S. leucanthemifolius were able to inhibit the in-vitro proliferation of a series of human tumour cell lines. The dichloromethane extract demonstrated effective cytotoxic activity with an IC50 of 20.1 microg mL(-1) on the large cell carcinoma cell line COR-L23. The ethyl acetate extract showed an IC50 value of 5.0 microg mL(-1) and the butanol extract an IC50 value of 6.4 microg mL(-1) on the same cell line. A major active constituent of the dichloromethane extract was shown to be jacaranone, which was demonstrated to have a very strong activity against all of the tumour cell lines with IC50 values between 2.86 and 3.85 microg mL(-1), although it did not account for all the activity observed. Constituents of S. leucanthemifolius extracts were identified by GC/MS analysis and NMR.