Cytotoxic Withanolides from the Whole Herb of L.

L. is a medicinal plant of the Solanaceae family, which is used to produce a variety of steroids. The present study reports on the cytotoxic withanolides of this plant. The species of L. was identified by DNA barcoding techniques. Two new withanolides (-), together with six known analogues (-) were isolated from the whole plant of L. The structures of these new compounds were determined on the basis of extensive spectroscopic data analyses and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculations. The withanolides exhibited strong cytotoxic activities against A549, Hela and p388 cell lines. Furthermore, compounds and induced typical apoptotic cell death in A549 cell line according to the evaluation of the apoptosis-inducing activity by flow cytometric analysis.