Anti-tumor promoting activity of Dryopteris phlorophenone derivatives.

As a part of screening studies for cancer chemopreventive agents (anti-tumor promoters) 33 Dryopteris phlorophenone derivatives have been evaluated. The compounds tested comprised of monomeric acylphloroglucinols (e.g. desaspidinol, aspidinol) as well as dimeric (e.g. aspidin, desaspidin), trimeric (e.g. filixic acids), and tetrameric (e.g. dryocrassin) phlorophenone, wherein hexacyclic rings are bound together by a methylene bridge. These compounds were examined for their in vitro anti-tumor promoting effect on Epstein-Barr virus antigen activation induced by the tumor promoter 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). The two dimeric compounds aspidin and desaspidin, which were found to be the most active among the tested phlorophenones, were also examined in vivo on two stage mouse skin carcinogenesis, and found to show significant inhibitory effect on 7,12-dimethylbenz[alpha]anthracene (DMBA)-TPA tumor promotion.