Study on chemical constituents of some Vietnamese lichens looking for compounds that could inhibit some cancer cell lines

Lichens are symbiotic products of the mycobiont (fungal partner) and photobiont (algal partner) and are known to produce a varied range of secondary metabolites and some of them are unique to lichen symbiosis including depsides, depsidones, diphenyl ethers…These compounds have attracted much attention in investigations because of their antitumor properties. Lichens in tropical Vietnamese habitats have not been well studied chemically. In the course of our systematic research on lichen substances from the Vietnamese flora, we have examined some lichens which is widely distributed in the southern part of the central of Vietnam. In this report, we present the chemical structure of isolated compounds from studied lichens, as well as their biogenetic considerations. The cytotoxic activities at the concentration of 100 m g/mL against human epithelial carcinoma (Hela), liver hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2), human lung cancer (NCI-H460), and human breast cancer (MCF-7) cell lines were evaluated on some of these compounds.