Potential Biological Activities of Magnoflorine: A Compound from Aristolochia debilis Sieb. et Zucc

Magnoflorine, an important compound in Aristolochia, was usually used as an anxiolytic chemical. In this study, the magnoflorine was isolated from Aristolochia and the biological activities such as antioxidant, ${\alpha}$-tyrosinase inhibitory, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer activities were investigated. The magnoflorine showed significant antioxidant activity as a 2,2-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenger, $50{\mu}g/mL$ of the magnoflorine scavenged about 70.8% of all the free radicals. And it was good at ${\alpha}$-tyrosinase inhibiting, $100{\mu}g/mL$ of the magnoflorine inhibited 36.5% of the tyrosinase. High dosage of magnoflorine inhibited the inflammation production nitric oxide (NO), and the magnoflorine protected the murine macrophage cells (RAW 264.7) from LPS-induced apoptosis. The cell viability of human colon cancer calls (HT-29) was around 100% when treated with different dose of magnoflorine, it's suggesting that magnoflorine had no anticancer effect.