Phytochemical analysis of agarwood (Gyrinops versteegii (Gilg.) Domke) leaves extracts as anticancer using GC-MS

Abstract

Cancer is one of the main causes of death in the world. Indonesia's natural wealth offers great potency for the development of cancer drugs, including Agarwood leaves Gyrinops versteegii (Gilg.) Domke. The previous study revealed that leaves extract of G. versteegii has cytotoxic activity on several cancer cell lines i.e. breast cancer (T47D), colon cancer (WiDr) and cervix cancer (HeLa). The limited study on the phytochemical content of G. versteegii due to the specific distribution of this species, only in the East part of Indonesia. This study aimed to analyze the phytochemical compounds of the leaves extract of G. versteegii and identified which were reported as anticancer according to the database. Samples were collected from the Bogor Botanical Gardens, West Java, Indonesia. Extraction was done by overnight maceration using chloroform and ethanol solvents in the ratio of sample: solvents at 1: 10 (w/v). Phytochemical content was analyzed using GC-MS (AOC-20i Shimadzu) equipped with auto- injector connected to an ESI mass spectrometer. The results showed that ethanol extract contained 21 compounds while chloroform extract 18 compounds. The most abundant compound detected in both extracts were fatty acid, namely palmitic acid, stearic acid, and pentadecanoic acid. Terpenoids observed as the second major compound in both extracts. Among the detected compounds, lauric acid, myristinic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, loliolide, phytol, farnesol, squalene, and nerolidol were observed in both extracts and reported as anticancer. Specific for the chloroform extract, oleic acid, globulol, bisabolol and 1- docosanol may responsible for the anticancer activity while in ethanol extract were digitoxin and nerol. This research is the first reported study on metabolite profiling of G. versteegii leaves extract. This result supports the further study on G. versteegii as the anticancer-resource plant.