The total synthesis of the potent microtubule-stabilizing, antimitotic agent (+)-discodermolide is described. The convergent synthetic strategy takes advantage of the diastereoselective alkylation of a ketone enolate to establish the key C15-C16 bond. The synthesis is amenable to preparation of gram-scale quantities of (+)-discodermolide and analogues.

In this issue of Cancer Cell, Gascoigne and Taylor (2008) report their findings of following 10,000 single cells incubated with three classes of antimitotic drugs, including paclitaxel (taxol). This extensive analysis reveals a previously unappreciated complexity in response to such drugs and demonstrates that it is more than genetics that determines cell life or death.

A variety of cytological studies have produced the concept that the antimitotic drugs colchicine and Colcemid bind to specific proteins, the "tubulins" (1, 3, 4, 20, 38, 42) . Moreover it has been implied in most of these studies that these "colchicine-binding proteins" are recovered in a soluble form, i .e ., in the 100,000 g supernate from a cellular homogenate . However, recently, colchicine...

A series of novel dithiocarbamates with benzimidazole and chalcone scaffold have been designed synthesised and evaluated for their antimitotic activity. Compounds 4c and 9d display the most promising antimitotic activity with IC(50) of 1.66 μM and 1.52 μM respectively.

Plants that contain anthracene-derived compounds such as anthraquinones have been reported to act as anticancer besides their use for millennia to treat constipation, but the mechanism of action is still unfolding. Therefore we pursue this study to explore a new horizon in the anticancer property of these agents with relevance to mitotic arrest. To achieve this goal, the antimitotic activity of...

Antimitotic agents, including Taxol, disrupt microtubule dynamics and cause a protracted mitotic arrest and subsequent cell death. Despite the broad utility of these drugs in breast cancer and other tumor types, clinical response remains variable. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) suppress the duration of Taxol-induced mitotic arrest in breast cancer cells and promote earlier mitotic slippage...

A bioassay method detecting deformations of mycelia germinated from conidia of Pyricularia oryzae P-2b, has been modified to give quantitative estimations. The method was first developed using antimitotic agents which showed characteristic curling effect. Morphological deformations include curling, swelling, hyper-divergency, beads shape and so on, and inhibition of the germination was also obs...