A Monoclonal Antibody-Based Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for Determination of Homoharringtonine.

Homoharringtonine (HHT), also known as omacetaxine, is a natural compound found in the genus Cephalotaxus and is a promising pharmaceutical drug used for the treatment of chronic or accelerated phase chronic myeloid leukemia. As a tool for the quantitative determination of HHT, a specific monoclonal antibody against HHT (MAb 6A1) was generated by conjugates prepared via sodium periodate-mediated oxidation. The developed indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) using MAb 6A1 was found to be highly specific and sensitive with a limit of detection for HHT of 48.8 ng/mL. Validation assays to evaluate precision and accuracy of the method were conducted by the use of intra- and inter-assay analysis, recovery test, and comparison analysis between the amounts of HHT determined by ELISA and high-performance liquid chromatography. These results revealed that the established icELISA using MAb 6A1 is specific, sensitive, and reliable enough to be applied to the qualitative analysis for HHT. Furthermore, the results of this study support the usefulness of sodium periodate as a reagent for the conjugation between Cephalotaxus alkaloids and proteins for producing specific antibodies.

Development of an indirect competitive immunochromatographic strip test for rapid detection and determination of anticancer drug, harringtonine.

Harringtonine (HT) is a natural compound, which is mainly produced by the genus Cephalotaxus, and has been clinically utilized in China for the treatment of acute leukemia and lymphoma. However, the amounts of HT in the Cephalotaxus species are very small; therefore, plant tissue cultures have been focused upon to enhance HT production. Qualitative/quantitative methods for HT detection are required to screen superior cell lines. We developed a one-step indirect competitive immunochromatographic assay (ICA) using colloidal gold nanoparticles conjugated with highly specific monoclonal antibodies against HT (MAb 1D2) for simple, rapid, and sensitive detection of HT in plant samples. This ICA can be completed in 15min after dipping the strip into analytes with a limit of detection of ∼313ng/mL. In developed ICA, fiber pad which is usually used for conventional ICA, was not used to shorten the time for preparing chromatographic strip, resulting in a decrease in the volume of valuable analytes (20µL). Considering simplicity, rapidity, and sensitivity of the developed ICA, this study could be applied to a fieldwork study for finding new natural resources containing HT.

HPLC analysis of harringtonine and homoharringtonine in the needles of Cephalotaxus griffithii alkaloid fraction and cytotoxic activity on chronic myelogenous leukaemia K562 cell.

Harringtonine (HT) and homoharringtonine (HHT) are Cephalotaxus alkaloids with considerable antileukaemic activity. The objectives of this research were to (1) determine the content of HT and HHT present in Cephalotaxus griffithii needles alkaloid fraction (CGAF) and (2) compare the antiproliferative activity of CGAF, with that of HT and HHT on chronic myelogenous leukaemia K562 cell. The concentration of HT and HHT was found to be 122.14 and 16.79 mg/g of CGAF, respectively. Treatment of K562 cells with CGAF, HT and HHT decreased the viable cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Interestingly, the maximum cell death was found in CGAF, with IC50 value which was 3- to 4.6-fold lower than those of HT and HHT. Our results indicate that HT content in the needles of C. griffithii is higher than HHT, and alkaloids other than HT and HHT in CGAF are predominantly responsible for K562 cell death.

Synthesis of novel molecular probes inspired by harringtonolide.

A novel harringtonolide-inspired scaffold containing a cycloheptatriene ring and two fused cyclopentane rings has been synthesised from simple starting materials. The scaffold, containing a similar substitution pattern and relative stereochemistry to the complex diterpenoid, has been enumerated into a small library of derivatives. One of these library members has been converted into a sub-library of substituted triazoles using copper-catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (click) chemistry. The scaffold may be useful in drug discovery or in the preparation of additional molecular probes for chemical biology.

Completed preparative separation of alkaloids from Cephaltaxus fortunine by step-pH-gradient high-speed counter-current chromatography.

Cephalotaxine-type alkaloids are the anti-cancer components in twigs, leaves, roots and seeds of Cephalotaxus fortunine. It is very important to use the limited resource by finding an efficient purification technology of the alkaloids. Separation of cephalotaxine-type alkaloids in Cephalotaxus fortunine by step-pH-gradient high-speed counter-current chromatography (step-pH-gradient HSCCC) was studied in this paper. The step-pH-gradient HSCCC was performed on a HSCCC instrument equipped with a 400-mL column, using the upper phase of ethyl acetate-n-hexane-water, with added 0.01% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) as stationary phase, and the lower phase of ethyl acetate-n-hexane-water, with added 2% NH(4)OH, 0.2% NH(4)OH and 0.05% TFA as mobile phase. For each separation, 800mg of extract of cephalotaxine-type alkaloids was separated to yield 9.3mg of drupacine, 15.9mg of wilsonine, 130.4mg of cephalotaxine, 64.8mg of epi-wilsonine, 12.8mg of fortunine and 35.6mg of acetylcephalotaxine with purities 81.2%, 85.7%, 95.3%, 97.5%, 89.1% and 96.2%, respectively. The recovery of each alkaloid was more than 90%. The structures of the six alkaloids were identified by electrospray ionization mass spectrum (ESI-MS) and (1)H and (13)C NMR.

HPLC-electrospray ionization-MS-MS analysis of Cephalotaxus harringtonia leaves and enhancement of the extraction efficiency of alkaloids therein by SFE.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method is developed for use in the electrospray mass spectrometric (MS)-MS analysis of alkaloids contained in Cephalotaxus harringtonia leaves. Nine alkaloids having ester groups can be separated and detected with good sensitivity. The MS and MS-MS spectra obtained provides information on their chemical structures. Supercritical fluid extraction is also applied in order to improve the extraction efficiency of Cephalotaxus alkaloids such as cephalotaxine, harringtonine, homoharringtonine, and isoharringtonine. When carbon dioxide-methanol-water (80:18:2, v/v) is used the extraction yield is found to be higher than that using the other supercritical solvents evaluated and conventional organic solvent extraction.

Stability-indicating LC assay of and impurity identification in homoharringtonine samples.

Homoharringtonine (HHT) is a potent myelosuppressive agent and has antitumor activity. Recent studies suggest that it inhibits tumor growth by inducing apoptosis. HHT is an ester of the alkaloid cephalotaxine. It is isolated from genus Cephalotaxus. At least ten HHT analogs have been identified from cephalotaxus extracts. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separations of the cephalotaxine alkaloids in plant extracts have been reported, they have not been validated as specific and stability-indicating for HHT. Due to the complexity of the alkaloid extracts, it is conceivable that additional analogs may still be unresolved from HHT. This paper presents an improved and validated HPLC assay for HHT. The assay is stability-indicating, precise (R.S.D. < 1%), linear (r2 = 0.9999), and accurate (error < 1%). The assay reveals three congeners present as impurities in HHT samples. Two are new and have not been previously reported. Identities of the impurities and forced decomposition products, elucidated with their HPLC retention and spectral data, are also presented.