In vitro and in silico investigations on natural compounds with predicted activity against neuroblastomas

In the present study, the ability of an ethanolic extract from Stokesia laevis to inhibit the development of human glioblastoma cell line U87 has been investigated; cytotoxic activity has been estimated at 78%, by comparison with the control cells, glial cell line NHA, while IC₅₀ values were 9.12 μg gallic acid equivalents per 1 mL extract for U87, and 24.17 μg gallic acid equivalents per 1 mL extract for NHA, respectively. Docking simulation using the active compounds in stokesia aster, by comparison with curcumin, on the Bcl-2 anti-apoptotic protein target have revealed the following order in magnitude of the docking score: native ligand > curcumin > luteolin-7-O-glucoside > luteolin-8-O-glucoside > luteolin, with RMSD between 0.01 and 0.93. Since the access to neuroblastomas is no longer restricted by the blood-brain barrier, in the same time a selective cytotoxicity has been demonstrated, higher on tumor astrocytes than the normal astrocytes, it was concluded the potential use of stokesia aster ethanolic extracts and luteolin derivates as an alternative in neuroblastomas approach.