Chromatographic isolation and characterization of bioactive components from the plant of Cuscuta campestris Y.

Plant derived antioxidants have a potential to prevent cell damage caused by free radicals. As a holoparasitic plant, C. campestris is being valorized for treatment of liver injury and cancer prevention in traditional medicine. The purpose of this study is to identify the antioxidant and anticancer associated content of diethyl ether, ethyl acetate, methanol, n-butanol and water extracts of C. campestris by spectroscopic and chromatographic methods. Quercetin, kaempferol and isorhamnetin were found highest in all extracts except the water extract in which highest amount of rutin and chlorogenic acid was found.by HPLC-DAD analyses. The highest antioxidant potential was found (SC50, 0.023 mg/mL) in the ethyl acetate extract. Anticancer activities of the extracts were evaluated on SNU-398, HepG2 and SK-OV-3 cells and controlled on the normal adult human dermal fibroblast (hDFs) cells. Methanol and ethyl acetate extracts showed cytotoxicity on the SNU-398 with the CC50 values of 18.7 and 19.6 µg/mL, respectively. While ethyl acetate, methanol and butanol extracts showed cytotoxicity on HepG2 and SK-OV-3, diethyl ether and water extract were not found cytotoxic. Only butanol extract was found cytotoxic on the hDFs cells amoung the ethyl acetate, methanol and buthanol extracts. Main fractions of ethyl acetate extract collected with preparative HPLC were purified and identified as quercetin, kaempferol and isorhamnetin by using UV, MS-MS and FT-IR spectra. While these three flavonols showed cytotoxic effect on SK-OV-3 cells, none of them was found cytotoxic on the hDFs cells. Quercetin and kaempferol were showed cytotoxic effect on the HepG2 cells as well. In conclusion, the ethyl acetate, methanol extracts with the isolated quercetin, kaempferol and isorhamnetin from C. campestris are promising candidates for further studies on anticancer drug development.