Pyridoacridine alkaloids inducing neuronal differentiation in a neuroblastoma cell line, from marine sponge Biemna fortis.

A new and three known pyridoacridine alkaloids were isolated from the Indonesian marine sponge Biemna fortis as neuronal differentiation inducers against a murine neuroblastoma cell line, Neuro 2A. The chemical structure of the new compound, labuanine A (1), was determined by spectroscopic study and chemical conversion. These pyridoacridine alkaloids induced multipolar neuritogenesis in more than 50% of cells at 0.03-3 micro M concentration. Compound 3, which showed the strongest neuritogenic activity among them, also induced increase of acetylcholinesterase, a neuronal marker in Neuro 2A and arrested cell cycle at the G2/M phase.