This work reports the chemical composition and cytotoxic evaluation of the
essential oils from three different samples of the leaves of Porcelia macrocarpa R. E. Fries (Annonaceae). The
crude oils, obtained by hydrodistillation procedures, were chemically analyzed by GC/MS. The obtained data indicated the predominance of
sesquiterpenes (89.8 +/- 0.7%), the main compounds being
germacrene D (47 +/-+/- 1%) and bicyclogermacrene (37 +/- 1%). These
oils also contained the
monoterpene verbanyl
acetate (0.5 +/- 0.06%) and the
diterpene phytol (1.2 +/- 0.3%). The
crude oils obtained from leaves were pooled and tested in vitro against six
cancer cell lineages--murine
melanoma (B16F10-Nex2), human glioblastome (U87), human cervical
carcinoma (HeLa), human
leukemia (HL-60), human colon
carcinoma (HCT), human breast
adenocarcinoma (SKBr), and human
melanoma (A2058), as well as against a non-tumorigenic human cell line (HFF). Since the
essential oil reduced more than 50% of the viability of several
tumor cells at 100 microg/mL, indicating the presence of active compounds, the crude material was subjected to fractionation over a SiO2/AgNO3 column. This procedure afforded different fractions composed of pure as well as different mixtures of bicyclogermacrene and
germacrene D, which were tested against the same tumor cell lines, indicating a significant cytotoxic potential against HL-60 cells. These results suggested that the crudeoils and their components, mainly
germacrene D, could be used as prototypes for the development of new anti-
cancer agents for the treatment of human
leukemia.