Selective antiproliferative activity of caffeic acid phenethyl ester analogues on highly liver-Metastatic murine colon 26-L5 carcinoma cell line Original Research Article

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE, 2) and its twenty analogues (1, 3–21) were prepared. These esters were tested by MTT assay on growth of murine colon 26-L5 carcinoma, murine B16-BL6 malonoma, murine Lewis lung carcinoma, human HT-1080 fibrosarcoma, human lung A549 adenocarcinoma, and human cervix HeLa adenocarcinoma cell lines. It was found that CAPE analogues possessed selective antiproliferative activity toward highly liver-metastatic murine colon 26-L5 carcinoma cell line. Among them, 4-phenylbutyl caffeate (4), (Z)-8-phenyl-7-octenyl (10a) and (E)-8-phenyl-7-octenyl (10b) caffeate showed the most potent antiproliferative activity (EC50 value, 0.02 μM). In addition, CAPE (2) induced DNA fragmentation at concentrations of 1 to 10 μg/mL towards murine colon 26-L5 carcinoma cells.