Anti-tyrosinase and cytotoxic activities of synthetic compound 2’-hydroxy-3,4,3’,4’-tetramethoxychalcone

Abstract

It has been demonstrated by several studies that synthetic chalcone compound products having antioxidant and anti tyrosinase properties. In this study, the novel synthetic 2’-hydroxy-3,4,3’,4’-tetramethoxychalcone (HTMC) was evaluated for their antityrosinase, antioxidant, and cytotoxicity properties. In anti tyrosinase activities, HTMC showed an activity and is postulated as potential tyrosinase inhibitor. The antityrosinase activity of HTMC, however, was lower than Kojic Acid (positive control). It was due to the structure of HTMC that have been modified synthetically at position 4 by inserting methoxy group. For that reason, the potency of HTMC as tyrosinase inhibitor was reduced and this statement supports our finding that is HTMC have less active compared to kojic acid. In contrast, HTMC demonstrate low antioxidant activities for both DPPH and FRAP assays. The highest percentage of inhibition for HTMC was 37% in DPPH assay at the concentration of 242 μM whilst the highest FRAP value of HTMC was 2 351 μmol/L. It is due to their chemical structure that contains only 1 group of hydroxyl in A-ring at position 2 that reflected to its ability to scavenge free radicals. HTMC showed negligible toxicity effect on Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell at the concentration of (0, 0.01, 0.1 and 1) μM. As it considered as preliminary report on cytotoxicity effect of HTMC, this data is valuable to be further investigated on human cell line.