Antioxidant and antitumoral activities of isolated macamide and macaene fractions from Lepidium meyenii (Maca)

In this paper, a UPLC-ESI-MS was established to analyze macamide and macaene fractions from Lepidium meyenii (Maca). The antioxidant activity of Maca crude extract (MCE), total macamides (TMM) and total macaenes (TME) was evaluated by DPPH radical scavenging, ABTS radical scavenging and reducing power. The ability of MCE, TMM and TME against multiple cancer cell lines (leukemia HL-60, lung cancer A549, liver cancer SMMC-7721, breast cancer MCF-7, and colon cancer SW480) was used to evaluate their anticancer activity. The results demonstrate that TMM has the best free radical scavenging ability and reducing power compared to MCE, TME, and TMM, TME has the weakest antioxidant capacity compared to them. The difference in antioxidant properties between TMM and TME may be caused by benzylated alkamide in the chemical structure. TMM also has a good inhibitory effect on the five cancer cells. N-benzyl-(9Z, 12Z, 15Z)-octadecatrienamide (NBot) is the most cytotoxicity inhibitory of the macamides tested. The inhibitory effect of N-benzyl-9Z, 12Z-octadecadienamide (NBod) on colon cancer SW480 is near that of control group, while the inhibitory rates of NBot on leukemia HL-60, lung cancer A549, liver cancer SMMC-7721, and breast cancer MCF-7 are near those of the control group. Hence, NBot can be considered to have great potential as a natural drug with high efficiency and low side effects for cancer therapy.