Cytotoxicity and Antiviral Properties of Alkaloids Isolated from Pancratium maritimum

Ten Amaryllidaceae alkaloids (AAs) were isolated for the first time from Pancratium maritimum collected in Calabria region, Italy. They belong to different subgroups of this family and were identified as lycorine, which is the main alkaloid, 9-O-demethyllycorine, haemanthidine, haemanthamine, 11-hydroxyvittatine, homolycorine, pancracine, obliquine, tazettine and vittatine. Haemanthidine was isolated as a scalar mixture of two 6-epimers, as already known also for other 6-hydroxycrinine alkaloids, but for the first time they were separated as 6,11-O,O′-di-p-bromobenzoyl esters. The evaluation of the cytotoxic and antiviral potentials of all isolated compounds was undertaken. Lycorine and haemanthidine showed cytotoxic activity on Hacat cells and A431 and AGS cancer cells while, pancracine exhibited selective cytotoxicity against A431 cells. We uncovered that in addition to lycorine and haemanthidine, haemanthamine and pancracine also possess antiretroviral abilities, inhibiting pseudotyped human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)−1 with EC50 of 25.3 µM and 18.5 µM respectively. Strikingly, all the AAs isolated from P. maritimum were able to impede dengue virus (DENV) replication (EC50 ranged from 0.34–73.59 µM) at low to non-cytotoxic concentrations (CC50 ranged from 6.25 µM to >100 µM). Haemanthamine (EC50 = 337 nM), pancracine (EC50 = 357 nM) and haemanthidine (EC50 = 476 nM) were the most potent anti-DENV inhibitors. Thus, this study uncovered new antiviral properties of P. maritimum isolated alkaloids, a significant finding that could lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies to fight viral infectious diseases.