Tithonia diversifolia and its main active component tagitinin C induce survivin inhibition and G2/M arrest in human malignant glioblastoma cells.

We investigated the antitumour activity of Tithonia diversifolia (TD) on malignant glioblastoma cells. Our results suggested that tagitinin C was the main component in viability inhibition on malignant glioblastoma cells, and also accounted to be the most abundant component (>65%) in TD extract. Both TD extract and tagitinin C exhibited vigorous potential to produce in vitro viability inhibition, autophagic cell death and G2/M arrest. Furthermore, the activity of survivin, a critical resistant-factor in cancer therapy, could be downregulated significantly by TD extract and tagitinin C. These findings suggested that TD extract and tagitinin C were effective for treating malignant glioblastoma.