Chemical composition and cytotoxic activity of the essential oil of Hinterubera imbricata species collected in Venezuelan Andes

Abstract

Hinterhubera imbricata Cuatrec. et Aristeg belongs to Asteraceae family and it is one of the six endemic species that grows in Venezuela Andean. Present investigation aimed to determine the chemical composition of the essential oil of Hinterhubera imbricata and to evaluate the cytotoxic activity in human tumor cell lines from MCF-7 (breast carcinoma without over-expression of the HER2/cerb-2), PANC-1 (pancreatic adenocarcinoma ductal type) and SKBr3 (breast carcinoma, in which the HER2/cerb-2 gene is overexpressed). Results indicated that essential oil was mainly composed of monoterpenes being α-phellandrene, α-pinene, β-phellandrene and p-cymene as major components. Cytotoxic analysis revealed that this essential oil exhibited antitumor activity in all human tumor lines tested being more cytotoxic for the pancreatic cancer tumor line. To the best of our knowledge there are no published studies regarding either the genus Hinterhubera or the species Hinterhubera imbricata, thus, present investigation is considered as a contribution to the genus Hinterhubera study.