Medicinal plants used for the treatment of
epilepsy are potentially a valuable source of novel
antiepileptic small molecules. To identify
anticonvulsant secondary metabolites, we performed an in vivo, zebrafish-based screen of medicinal plants used in Southeast Asia for the treatment of
seizures. Solanum torvum Sw. (Solanaceae) was identified as having significant
anticonvulsant activity in zebrafish larvae with
seizures induced by the GABAA antagonist
pentylenetetrazol (PTZ). This finding correlates well with the ethnomedical use of this plant in the Philippines, where a water decoction of S. torvum leaves is used to treat epileptic
seizures. HPLC microfractionation of the bioactive
crude extract, in combination with the in vivo zebrafish seizure assay, enabled the rapid localization of several bioactive compounds that were partially identified online by UHPLC-TOF-MS as
steroid glycosides. Targeted isolation of the active constituents from the methanolic extract enabled the complete de novo structure identification of the six main bioactive compounds that were also present in the traditional preparation. To partially mimic the in vivo metabolism of these
triterpene glycosides, their common aglycone was generated by
acid hydrolysis. The isolated molecules exhibited significant
anticonvulsant activity in zebrafish seizure assays. These results underscore the potential of zebrafish bioassay-guided microfractionation to rapidly identify novel bioactive small molecules of natural origin.