Piloquinone, potent cytotoxic compound from Egyptian Streptomyces pilosus SBG-NRC-216

Background and objective Piloquinone shows biological activity as an anticancer and antitrypanosomal agent, and it acts as an inhibitor for monoamine oxidase, the main causative factor of Alzheimer’s disease. The aim of this study was to produce Piloquinone as a bioactive compound from a local Streptomyces isolate for many medical purposes. Materials and methods Fifty Streptomyces isolates for their capacity of Piloquinone production were tested. The potent Piloquinone producer, SBG-NRC-216 isolate, was identified by conventional and genetic methods. The produced compound was purified and identified on the basis of the spectroscopic analysis. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate efficacy of the compound. Results and conclusion The producer isolate was identified by phenotypic and genotypic methods. These methods confirmed that the strain name was Streptomyces pilosus SBG-NRC-216. The produced compound was purified and identified as Piloquinone. It showed a potent anticancer activity against five different human tumor cell lines: breast cancer cell line MCF-7, human liver cancer cell line HepG2, human lung cancer cell line A549 and human colon cancer cell lines Caco-2 and HCT-116. The results also indicated that Piloquinone had a weak antiviral activity against the H5N1 virus. The results proved that Piloquinone can be used as a bioactive compound that has many industrial and medical purposes.