Research Article
Abstract
Three pentacyclic triterpenes, named betulinic acid (1), 11α-hydroxy-β-amyrin (2) 3β-acetoxy-20 (29)-lupen- 28-aldehyde (3) were isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction of the bark of Platanus acerifolia Willd. The molecular structure of 1 and were established on the basis of various spectroscopic analyses. The molecular structure of (3) was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Compound (2) and (3) were obtained from the title plant for the first time. Cytotoxicity of the isolated compounds against three human cancer cell lines, HepG-2, MCF-7 and HL-60 were also determined with the cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. The target compounds showed the high cytotoxicity, with IC50 values in the range 2.2-9.1 μM. These results indicated that pentacyclic triterpenes from the bark of Platanus acerifolia Willd could be explored as potential cancer prevention agents.