Antitumor activity of pedunculagin,one of the ellagitannin

As a part of trials to develop the antitumor agent from tannins isolated from plants, the antitumor activity of pedunculagin, an ellagitannin, isolated fromAlnus hirsuta var.microphylla-was examinedin vitro andin vivo. In vitro, the cytotoxicity was determined by 0.4% trypan blue dye exclusion method. Pedunculagin showed the dose-dependent cytotoxicity against human chronic myelogenous leukemia (K-562), human promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60), mouse lymphoid neoplasm (P388), mouse lymphocytic leukemia (L1210) and mouse sarcoma 180 (S 180) cell lines. ED₅₀ values (ED₅₀) of each cell line were 5.30, 0.92, 2.78, 9.35 and 1.38 μg/ml respectively. The most sensitive cell line was HL-60.In vivo, pedunculagin was administered to ICR mouse with the doses of 50 and 100 μg/kg intraperitoneally once at 20 days before S180 inoculation. Pedunculagin showed the antitumor activity and its T/C ratio (%) was 120.82% in the group of both concentrations.