Planta Med 2008; 74 - PG43
DOI: 10.1055/s-0028-1084796

Anti-senescence effect of naturally occurring cytokinins and their 6,9-di-substituted derivatives as potent anti-aging substances

L Szüčová 1, M Zatloukal 1, K Doležal 1, L Spíchal 1, J Voller 1, M Strnad 1
  • 1Laboratory of Growth Regulators, Palacký University & Institute of Experimental Botany AS CR, Šlechtitelù 11, Olomouc, CZ 783 71, Czech Republic

Cytokinins represent a group of very important plant growth regulators that participate in a number of issues of plant life and development such as plant cell division, shoot meristem formation, nutrition mobilization, seed germination and leaf senescence [1]. Moreover, some cytokinins, e.g. kinetin, are able to delay changes associated with aging in human cells [2]. We modified artificially prepared cytokinin derivatives by the addition of cyclic and aliphatic etheric groups such as tetrahydropyran-2-yl, tetrahydrofuran-2-yl or ethoxyethyl on N9 atom of the purine moiety in order to obtain substances that might show improvement of particular biological functions of cytokinins maintaining their negligible toxicity and better stability. Derivatives of kinetin, isopentenyladenine and trans-zeatin and of many other either aliphatic or aromatic cytokinins were prepared and characterized by various physical methods (C, H, N elemental analyses, m.p., 1D, 2D NMR and mass spectrometry, HPLC). The stability of prepared substances at various pH conditions was studied using HPLC. The majority of synthesized derivatives exhibited high activity in all three cytokinin bioassays used (tobacco callus, wheat leaf senescence and Amaranthus bioassay). The highest activities were observed in the senescence bioassay. Marginal cytotoxicity of the prepared compounds was verified on several different normal cell lines including fibroblasts. Their anti-aging effect on human fibroblasts was studied and proved [3].

Acknowledgements: The work was supported by the grant of the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of CR No. MSM 6198959216.

References:1. Davies, P.J. (2004) Plant Hormones, Biosynthesis, Signal Transduction, Action! Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

2. Suresh, I. et al. (1994) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 201: 665.

3. Szüčová, et al. (2008) US 2008/00009508 A1 (patent application).