Rapid screening of bioactive compounds from natural products by integrating 5-channel parallel chromatography coupled with on-line mass spectrometry and microplate based assays

•A 5-channel parallel chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry method was established to screen active compounds.•The proposed approach has satisfied sensitivity and stability.•Three case studies of this approach identified several active compounds.•Agelasine B and (−)-agelasine D from marine sponge were found to have anti-tumor effect.

A high throughput method was developed for rapid screening and identification of bioactive compounds from traditional Chinese medicine, marine products and other natural products. The system, integrated with five-channel chromatographic separation and dual UV–MS detection, is compatible with in vitro 96-well microplate based bioassays. The stability and applicability of the proposed method was validated by testing radical scavenging capability of a mixture of seven known compounds (rutin, dihydroquercetin, salvianolic acid A, salvianolic acid B, glycyrrhizic acid, rubescensin A and tangeretin). Moreover, the proposed method was successfully applied to the crude extracts of traditional Chinese medicine and a marine sponge from which 12 bioactive compounds were screened and characterized based on their anti-oxidative or anti-tumor activities. In particular, two diterpenoid derivatives, agelasine B and (−)-agelasine D, were identified for the first time as anti-tumor compounds from the sponge Agelas mauritiana, showing a considerable activity toward MCF-7 cells (IC50 values of 7.84 ± 0.65 and 10.48 ± 0.84 μM, respectively). Our findings suggested that the integrated system of 5-channel parallel chromatography coupled with on-line mass spectrometry and microplate based assays can be a versatile and high efficient approach for the discovery of active compounds from natural products.

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