• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2009

The prostate cancer is the critical health problem, increasing of its related death in worldwide. Unfortunately present surgery and chemotherapeutic choices seem to be impossible in curing or controlling prostate cancer, because metastasis occasionally advances even after these potentially curative therapies. Therefore, there is immediate need to alternative chemoprevention and chemotherapeutic agents. Over one hundred species of dried medicinal herbs were tested for proliferation inhibitory effects on prostate cancer cell line, PC-3. One of them, Anthriscus sylvestris was selected because of potent anti-proliferation effect. The dried root of A. sylvestris was extracted with 100% methanol for 2-3 days and its extract was fractionated by using ethyl acetate. And ethyl acetate layer was subjected to column chromatographies on silica gel, reverse phase-18 (RP-18) and Sephadex LH-20, in turn. Finally, the pure compound was obtained by crystallization in methanol at $4^{\circ}C$ for overnight and identified as deoxypodophyllotoxin by NMR spedorscopic and physico-chemical analyses. In addition, it was confirmed that deoxypodophyllotoxin clearly inhibits the proliferation of PC-3 cells in a dose and time-dependent manner.