Studies on the separation of cucurbitacins from the fruit base of Cucumis melo L.and their antitumor activities

The experiment was designed to study the cucurbitacins from the fruit base of Cucumis melo L.and its antitumor activities.Four compounds were isolated from the ethyl acetate extract of the fruit base of Cucumis melo L.by silica gel column chromatography and they were identified as cucurbitacin A,cucurbitacin B-2-O-glucoside,cucurbitacin B,and cucurbitacin E.The cucurbitacin A was isolated from the calyx of cucumis melo for the first time.MTT assay was used to examine the effects of cucurbitacins on the proliferations of Hela cells and HepG-2 cells. The IC_(50) of the proliferations of Hela cells of these four compounds were 0.176,0.18,23.79, 2.32μg/mL respectively,and the IC_(50) of the proliferations of Hela cell were 0.216,0.176, 16.69,2.37μg/mL respectively.The results showed that cucurbitacin A,B had excellent antitumor activities and cucurbitacin E had effective inhibitory activity on the proliferation of both Hela cells and HepG-2 cells.