The plant <i>Inula hilinium</i> (elecampane) is a medicinal plant that is found widely throughout England. It has been used as a diuretic, antiseptic, and skin cream, and has also been used in treating pulmonary diseases. Previous studies have shown elecampane to be toxic to 4T1 murine breast cancer cells. Powdered elecampane root was refluxed in dichlorlomethane for 1 hour, the dichloromethane was distilled off, and the extract was resuspended in ethanol. The resulting ethanolic extract was size-fractionated on a Sephadex LH20 column with 75% ethanol as the mobile phase and analyzed through absorbance at 280nm. Fractions from the column were assayed for cytotoxic effects on 4T1 cells. Cytotoxic fractions were further characterized using HPLC (solid phase: C18, mobile phase: 0-75% methanol gradient over 30 minutes). One peak was identified through HPLC from the most cytotoxic fraction. This peak was collected and further characterized using mass spectroscopic analysis (MALDI TOF). Based on the mass spectroscopic analysis, the most likely size of the cytotoxic molecule isolated through this study was determined to be 440g/mol. Further research is ongoing to identify this cytotoxic component of elecampane.

Purification of components from <i>Inula hilinium</i> (elecampane) which are cytotoxic to the 4T1 murine breast cancer cell line

249th National Meeting (2015)

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Purification of components from Inula hilinium (elecampane) which are cytotoxic to the 4T1 murine breast cancer cell line