Search for natural substances in association with conventional chemotherapeutic drugs with a chemiosensitizing action easily accessible to the
tumor mass has encouraged our studies on
voacamine (VOA) and its monomeric units,
voacangine and
vobasine. Our previous results showed that VOA sensitized multidrug resistant (MDR)
osteosarcoma cells (U-2 OS/DX) to
doxorubicin (DOX) cytotoxicity. VOA, extracted by Peschiera fuchsiaefolia plant, is a bisindole
alkaloid consisting of an Iboga skeleton (
voacangine) directly linked to a 2-acyl
indole unit (
vobasine). High-performance thin-layer chromatography densitometry demonstrated the purity of VOA,
voacangine and
vobasine samples. Flow cytometry analysis showed that VOA,
voacangine and
vobasine enhanced DOX accumulation of U-2 OS/DX cells, in equally way, whereas VOA reduced more efficiently DOX efflux. Optical microscopy and clonogenic assay confirmed that VOA was more effective than
voacangine and
vobasine in enhancing DOX cytotoxic effect. These results showed that monomers linked together are necessary to modulate resistant phenotype of
osteosarcoma cells. To complete the study, we evaluated the effect of three compounds on microtubules by confocal microscopy, suggesting that only the whole molecule depolymerizes the microtubules blocking so DOX efflux-mediated by vesicles.