Phenolic Compounds of , , and have Antioxidant and Anticancer Activity.

Tree bark represents an important source of medicinal compounds that may be useful for cancer therapy. In the current study, high-performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection (HPLC-DAD) was used to determine the profile of the phenolic compounds of , and bark extracts. The antioxidant and anticancer bioactivities against different cancer cell lines were investigated. exerted significantly higher antioxidant activities in the diphenyl picrylhydrazine and β-carotene-linoleic acid assays than the other species. In novel profiles of phenolic acids (ferulic acid was the predominant compound) and catechin were detected. In , six phenolic acids were detected; the predominant compounds were hydroxycaffeic acid and protocatechuic acid. In , two phenolic acids and three catechins were detected; catechin was the predominant compound. The three species exerted clear anticancer activity against MCF-7, HeLa, Jurkat, T24, and HT-29 cells, with the strongest activity found in the extracts from . No antiproliferative activity against normal cells was found. Flow cytometry revealed greater accumulation of necrotic and early/late apoptotic cells in various treated cancer cells than in untreated control cells, and protocatechuic acid induced a similar accumulation of necrotic cells to that of the bark extracts. Caspase-3 and -7 activity was increased in cancer cells treated with different bark extracts; the highest activity was found in the treatment. Our results suggested that the treatment of cancer cells with bark extracts of and , and protocatechuic acid induced apoptosis, suggesting an association between anticancer activities and individual phenolic compounds.