Cytotoxicity of sesquiterpene alkaloids from Nuphar plants toward sensitive and drug-resistant cell lines.

Multi-drug resistance (MDR) is a critical problem in cancer chemotherapy. MDR causes the overexpression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters and mutations in tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. To tackle this issue, in this study, we focused on Nuphar plants, which have been traditionally used as food. Sesquiterpene alkaloids (1–3) were isolated from N. japonicum and dimeric sesquiterpene thioalkaloids (4–10) were isolated from N. pumilum. P-glycoprotein-overexpressing CEM/ADR5000 cells were cross-resistant to 6,6′-dihydroxythiobinupharidine (10). Using in silico molecular docking, we calculated the binding energies and simulated the interactions of these compounds with the correspo…