Abstract
The anticancer activity of terretonin N (
1
) and butyrolactone I (
2
), obtained from the thermophilic fungus
Aspergillus terreus
TM8, was intensively studied against prostate adenocarcinoma (PC-3) and ovary adenocarcinoma (SKOV3) human cell lines. According to this study, both compounds showed potent cytotoxicity towards ovarian adenocarcinoma cells (SKOV3) with IC
50
1.2 and 0.6 μg/mL, respectively. With respect to metastatic prostate cells (PC-3), the two compounds
1
and
2
showed a significantly promising cytotoxicity effect with IC
50
of 7.4 and 4.5 μg/mL, respectively. The tested fungal metabolites showed higher rates of early and late apoptosis with little or no necrotic apoptotic pathway in all treated prostate adenocarcinoma (PC-3) and ovary adenocarcinoma (SKOV3) human cell lines, respectively. The results reported in this study confirmed the promising biological properties of terretonin N (1) and butyrolactone I (2) as anticancer agents via the induction of cellular apoptosis. However, further studies are needed to elucidate the molecular mechanism by which cellular apoptosis is induced in cancer cells.