Antitumor constituents from some Korean medicinal plants

For the screening of bioactive natural products, the benzene or methanol extracts from 93 medicinal plants of Korea were prepared, and tested for the cytotoxicity against L1210 cells and for the antitumor action (Bae et al., 1992 and 1996). Of 93 extracts tested, 6 samples showed a cytotoxicity in both benzene and methanol extract, 39 samples in benzene and 13 samples in methanol extract. The benzene extract of the root of Scutellaria indica L., Sophora fIavescens Solander ex Aiton, Carpesium abrotanoides L., Gymnaster koraiensis (Nakai) Kitamura, Pyrola japonica Klenze, and Forsythiae Fructus showed a potent cytotoxic activity. This observation led to isolate active cytotoxic components, some of which demonstrated some antitumor action. In addition, the structure-activity relationship was discussed.