Chemical composition and selective cytotoxic activity of Euphorbia leucocephala essential oil.

This study investigates the chemical composition and cytotoxic activity of the essential oil from Euphorbia leucocephala. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and flame ionisation detection (GC-FID) identified thirty-nine constituents, representing 96.2% of the oil. Sesquiterpenes were predominant (61.7%), with spathulenol (18.0%) as the major compound. Cytotoxicity was evaluated against three human cancer cell lines: cervical adenocarcinoma (HeLa), breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7), and glioblastoma (U-251MG), as well as non-tumour fibroblasts (GM07492A). The essential oil exhibited IC50 values of 19.6 ± 1.7 μg/mL (HeLa), 14.1 ± 1.2 μg/mL (MCF-7), 83.0 ± 2.3 μg/mL (U-251MG), and 122.7 ± 1.5 μg/mL (GM07492A), indicating low toxicity to normal cells. The selectivity index was 6.2 for HeLa, 8.7 for MCF-7, and 1.4 for U-251MG, demonstrating strong selectivity for breast and cervical cancer cells and moderate selectivity for glioblastoma. These findings suggest the potential of E. leucocephala essential oil as a source of selective anticancer agents.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Natural Product Research

• Publication date

  2025-11-10

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Chemistry

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/14786419.2025.2583338PMID 41212159
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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