ELSEVIER CANCER LETTERS Cancer Letters 110(1996) 71-76 Cytotoxic potential of the preparations from Solarium trilobatum and the effect of sobatum on tumour reduction in mice P.V. Mohanana3*, KS. Devib ‘Toxicology Group, Biomedical Technology Wing, Sres Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Poojapura-695 012, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India bDepartment of Biochemishy, Kerala University, Kariavattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India Received14 August 1996; accepted 4 September 1996 Abstract Plant Solanum trilobatum was washed, powdered and used for extraction. The lyophilized aqueous extracted portion was tested for in vitro cytotoxicity by tissue culture technique using L929 and Vero cells. Petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate and ethanol were used for extraction and the extracted portions were subjected to in vitro tissue culture studies. It was shown that petroleum ether extract induced remarkable cytotoxicity, when compared to all other extracts with an LDSO of 7.0 pg in L929 and 5.8 pg in Vero cells. Further fractionated portions of petroleum ether extract (by adsorption chromatography) underwent tissue culture assay, and results suggest that petroleum ether/ethyl acetate (75:25) extractable portion is the most active fraction, named as sobatum, which induced an LDso of 7.0 pg in L929 and 7.5 pg in Vero cells. Sobatum significantly inhibit the peritoneal tumours induced by Dalton’s lymphoma ascites (DLA) and Ehrlich ascites (EA) tumour cell. The effect was more prominent when sobatum was administered orally as evidenced from the increased percentage of life span. Sobatum, the partially purified portion of Solarium trilobatum, was again fractionated by column chromatography and all the residues were concentrated and crystallized from methanol, giving only one pure crystalline compound, that was identified as Beta- sitosterol by comparing with authentic sample. Keywords: Sobatum; Tumour; Tissue culture; Dalton’s lymphoma ascites (DLA); Ehrlich ascites (EA); Vero; L929; Cyto- toxicity 1. Introduction The medicinal importance of plants were reported by many researchers [l-3]. Iscador, a commercial preparation from Viscum album, produced cytotoxi- city in various cell lines [4]. Berger et al. [5] found that certain tumours and cell lines were not found to be sensitive to iscador therapy. It was also reported * Corresponding author. that extracts of some spices were found to inhibit the tissue cultured cell as well as being cytotoxic to tumour cells [6,7]. Several studies showed the cyto- toxicity and antitumour activity of several ferns [3,8,9]. In an another study curcumin was found to inhibit the cell growth and had a tumour reducing potential, when given to animals [lo]. Sobatum, the partially purified component of the plant Solunum tri- lobutum, was obtained from the petroleum ether extract of the plant. Sobatum was found to be cyto- 0304-3835/96/$12.00 Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved PII SO304-3835(96)04463-l