CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS AND BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF FICUS PLATYPODA (MIQ.) LEAVES

Abstract

Six compounds were isolated for the first time from the leaves of Ficus platypoda and were identified as 3-methoxycarpachromene [1], pheophorbide-a methyl ester [2], pheophorbide-b methyl ester [3], (6S, 9R)-3-oxo-6-hydroxy-α-ionol [4], β-sitosterol-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside [5]and rutin [6] on the basis of their spectroscopic data;UV, IR, ¹H- and ¹³C-NMR in conjunction with 2D experiments (COSY, HSQC, HMBC), ESI/MS and direct comparison with published literatures. The different crude extracts (petroleum ether, ethyl acetate and n-butanol) showed selective antimicrobial activities against two Gram-positive bacteria, seven Gram-negative bacteria and two fungi. The different crude extracts also exhibited moderate to weak radical scavenging properties towards DPPH radical. The petroleum ether and ethyl acetate extracts showed remarkable cytotoxic activities against two human tumor cell lines: Human colon carcinoma (HCT-116) and Human breast cancer (MCF-7) cell lines, whereas week activities were detected with the n-butanol extract. Compound 2 showed potent antimalarial activity against both chloroquine-sensitive and chloroquine-resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum with IC₅₀ values in the range of 3.9 μg/mL without showing any cytotoxicity to mammalian cells but showing weak antileishmanial activity with IC₅₀ value of 40 μg/mL. This is the first report concerning the biological activities of Ficus platypoda leaves.

Key words: Ficus platypoda, Cytotoxicity, Antimalarial and Antileishmanial