Two of the
certonardosterols (9, 10) from the isolated twenty-three new polyhydroxysteroids
contains an unprecedented side chain differing
not only in alkylation and dealkylation but also in unusual positions
of hydroxylation. These sets of compounds have shown moderate
to significant cytotoxic activities against human solid tumor
cell lines specially tetrol (11) having an ED50 of 0.01–0.15 lg/mL
which is more potent than doxorubicin against human ovarian
cancer, human CNS cancer and human colon cancer cell lines