• Journal of Korea Foresty Energy
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2001

The 90% methanol extracts of eight magnoliaceae plants were collected and tested the cytotoxicity against SK-OV-3 and SiHa cells. Also six pure compounds such as magnonol, honokiol, dihydroxybiphenyl ether, linodenine, anonaine, asimilobine which were previously isolated from Magnolia obovata Thunb. were evaluated the cytotoxicities and their mechanism study using the Lactate dehydrogenase assay(LDH) and FACScan analysis system. Of the tested six compounds, magnonol, honokiol, dihydroxybiphenyl ether showed high cytotoxicities against human cancer cell lines, SK-OV-3 and SiHa cells. In addition, one of the plausible mechanisms of their antitumor activities suggested that they could induce the early stage of apoptosis. For the quantitative analysis, the methanol extractives were fractionated with chloroform, ethylacetate, $H_2O$ and then the ethylacetate fraction was chromatographed on silica gel using n-Hexane ; Acetone(4:1, v/v) as eluent. This fraction was subjected for the quantitative analysis in the HPLC system. The result suggested that the methanol extractives of Magnolia obovata Thunb. contained with magnonol, honokiol, dihydroxybiphenyl ether, 0.9%, 0.3% and 0.24%, respectively.