Liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy based discovery of cytotoxic principles from Daphne tangutica Maxim

Abstract

An ethyl acetate extract from the barks of the ethnic Chinese medicine Daphne tangutica Maxim. exhibited antihepatocellular carcinoma activity against HepG2 and Hep3B cell lines. By using high-performance liquid chromatography based activity profiling in combination with offline liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry and NMR analysis, we rapidly identified ten major components of the extract, including seven active principles, coumarins (1-4) and biscoumarins (7, 8, 10), along with three inactive flavonoids (5, 6, 9). This study demonstrated that our combined protocol can be used as an important strategy for chemical profiling, dereplication as well as the identification of bioactive compounds from herbal medicines.

Keywords: Activity profiling; Biscoumarins; Cytotoxicity; Daphne tangutica Maxim; Traditional Chinese medicine.