Cancer treatment is one of the biggest challenges of the current time as it has high
morbidity and mortality rates worldwide, with more than 18 million new cases and above
9 million deaths in year 2018, according to last statistics [1]. Natural sources have enormous potential for the discovery of new drugs against
cancer, since 93 drugs approved for the treatment of cancer in the last forty years
were from these sources [2]. An epiphytic plant found in north Sumatra Indonesia, Dischidia nummularia R.Br. (Apocynaceae) is used traditionally used for the treatment of cancer [3].
The aim of this study is to find out the relevant constituents of this plant, which
are responsible for this activity. Activity-guided isolation of the different extracts
(n-hexane, dichloromethane and methanol) of the plant was carried out using human
cancer cell lines and different chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques (LC,
LC-DAD-MS, GCMS and NMR) for bioassay, isolation and analysis of the chemical constituents,
respectively. The n-hexane and dichloromethane extracts of the plant showed strong activity against various
cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and CCRF-CEM). 2H-Chromene was isolated for the first
time from the n-hexane extract of this plant. In addition, a large number of fatty acids were isolated
from the plant along with glycerol-mono-stearate that was also found to be moderately
cytotoxic against the cancer cell lines. Isolation of further active compounds is
in progress.
