Malaysian Journal of Chemistry, 2017, Vol. 19(1), 67 – 74 In vitro Cytotoxic Activities of Aporphine Alkaloids from the Leaves of Alseodaphne peduncularis (Wall. ex. Ness) Meissn Ulil Amna, Mohd Azlan Naiah* and Kartini Ahmad Department of Chemitry, Faculty of Science and Mathematics, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, 35900 Tanjung Malim, Perak, Malaysia *Corresponding author: (e-mail: azlan@fsmt.upsi.edu.my) Four known aporphine alkaloids namely laurotetanine 1, N-methylaurotetanine 2, norboldine 3 and boldine 4 were isolated from the leaves of Alseodaphne peduncularis (Wall. Ex. Ness) Meissn (Lauraceae). Phytochemical tudies involved extraction, separation, and puriication by using various chromatography methods and tructural elucidation by using spectroscopic techniques such as UV, IR and 1D and 2D NMR. These alkaloids were assayed for cytotoxicity againt human uteric cervical tumor heLa, human promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 and normal mouse ibroblat NIH/3T3 cell lines by using the MTT assay. Alkaloids 1 and 2 showed cytotoxic activity efect againt heLa cell line with CD 50 value of 2 and 15 μg/ml, respectively, whereas alkaloids 3 and 4 showed very low activity with CD 50 value of 42 and 46 μg/ml, respectively. All four alkaloids did not show cytotoxic activity againt HL-60 and NIH/3T3 cell lines. Key words: Alseodaphne peduncularis; aporphine alkaloids; in vitro cytotoxic; phytochemical studies Received: June 2015; Accepted: April 2017 Cancer is the most common and fatal disease that caused about 7.6 million deaths in 2008. During the last decade, research on natural compounds has been particularly successful in the field of anticancer drug research. About 60% of anticancer drugs used nowadays are obtained from natural sources. The present review presents that most of the alkaloids isolated from a large number of plant families including Annonaceae, Lauraceae, Monimiaceae, Menispermaceae, Hernandiaceae and Ranunculaceae showed speciic emphases on their potential development as anticancer agents [1, 2]. Alseodaphne peduncularis belongs to the Lauraceae family have been recognized for a long time as a source of alkaloids included aporphine alkaloids [3]. Aporphinoids form an important group of plant secondary metabolites. More than 500 aporphine alkaloids, such proaporphines, oxoaporphines and aporphines have been isolated from various plant families, and many of these compounds displayed potent cytotoxic activities which may be exploited for the design of anticancer agents [2, 4]. Here, we diescribe the isolation, structural elucidation and compare the cytotoxicity of four known aporphine alkaloids isolated from the leaves of A. peduncularis:- laurotetanine 1, N-methyllaurotetanine 2, norboldine 3 and boldine 4. METHODOLOGY General Merck silica gel 60 (200–600 and 200–400 mesh) were used for column chromatography separations, aluminium support silica gel 60 F 254 for thin layer chromatography (TLC), and silica gel 60 F 254 with gypsum for preparative thin layer chromatography (PTLC). NMR spectra were recorded on JEOL ECX (500 MHz) using CDCl 3 as a solvent. HRESIMS was obtained on Agilent 6530 Accurate-Mass Q-TOF LC/ MS. UV spectra were obtained by using Perkin Elmer UV-visible spectrophotometer with methanol as a solvent and the IR spectra were obtained on Nicolet 6700 FTIR spectrophotometer with chloroform as a solvent.