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Regio-specific biotransformation of alizarin to alizarin methoxide with enhanced cytotoxicity against proliferative cells

  • Natural Products - Short Communication
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Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Alizarin has been reported to have an antigenotoxic activity along with an inhibitory effect on the tumor cell growth of human colon carcinoma cells. Alizarin was biotransformed into an O-methoxide derivative using O-methyltransferase from Streptomyces avermitilis MA4680 (SaOMT2) to enhance its bioefficacy. The biotransformed product was extracted, purified, and characterized using various chromatographic and spectroscopic analyses, and confirmed to be an alizarin 2-O-methoxide. The antiproliferative activity of the compound against gastric cancer cells (AGS), uterine cervical cancer (Hela), liver cancer (HepG2), and normal cell lines was investigated. Alizarin 2-O-methoxide showed an inhibitory effect on all three cancer-cell lines at very low concentrations, from 0.078 µM, with no cytotoxicity against 267B1 (human prostate epithelial) and MRC-5 (normal human fetal lung fibroblast).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea to RPP (NRF-2017R1C1B5018056), the Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Program JKS (SSAC, grant#: PJ013137), and YIP (SSAC, grant#: PJ013206).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Science and Biochemical Engineering, Sun Moon University, 70 Sunmoon-ro 221, Tangjeong-myeon, Asan-si, Chungnam, 31460, Republic of Korea

    Trang Thi Huyen Nguyen, Jang Mi Han, Hye Jin Jung, Ramesh Prasad Pandey & Jae Kyung Sohng

  2. Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering and Biotechnology, Sun Moon University, 70 Sunmoon-ro 221, Tangjeong-myeon, Asan-si, Chungnam, 31460, Republic of Korea

    Hye Jin Jung, Ramesh Prasad Pandey & Jae Kyung Sohng

  3. Department of Biotechnology, The Catholic University of Korea, Bucheon, 14662, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea

    Yong Il Park

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  1. Trang Thi Huyen Nguyen
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Correspondence to Jae Kyung Sohng.

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Nguyen, T.T.H., Han, J.M., Jung, H.J. et al. Regio-specific biotransformation of alizarin to alizarin methoxide with enhanced cytotoxicity against proliferative cells. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 47, 537–542 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-020-02286-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-020-02286-4

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