The study by Chun et al. (1) in this issue of the Journal provides important evidence for both the involvement of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway in the early stages of lung carcinogenesis and the pharmacologic mechanism of deguelin in decreasing cancer-related increased AKT activity in the PI3K pathway. What makes these findings of great interest is the fact that the...

The Hsp90 facilitates proper folding of signaling proteins associated with cancer progression, gaining attention as a target for therapeutic intervention. The natural rotenoid deguelin was identified as an Hsp90 inhibitor, but concerns about neurotoxicity have limited prospects for clinical development. In this study, we report progress on deguelin analogues that address this limitation, focusi...

An emphasis in early detection and more effective treatments has decreased the mortality rate of breast cancer. Despite this decrease, breast cancer continues to be the leading cause of death among women between 40 and 55 years of age and is the second overall cause of death among women. Hence, the aim of the present study was to assess the therapeutic efficacy of deguelin, a rotenoid isolated ...

Cardiac stem cells (CSCs) are important for improving cardiac function following myocardial infarction, with CSC migration to infarcted or ischemic myocardium important for cardiac regeneration. Strategies to improve cell migration may improve the efficiency of myocardial regeneration. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is an essential molecule in cell migration, but the endogenous bFGF leve...

Eight known compounds were isolated from the shrub Tephrosia toxicaria. Among them, 6,7-dimethoxy-chromone (1), was described by the first time from this genus, villosinol (2), which had been previously reported without its 13C-NMR data and sumatrol (3), which has its 13C-NMR data corrected. The antibacterial activity of Tephrosia toxicaria extract and obovatin (6), deguelin (7), 12a-hydroxyα-t...

Rotenone and rotenoid-containing botanicals, important insecticides and fish poisons, are reported to have anticancer activity in rats and mice. The toxic action of rotenone is attributed to inhibition of NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase activity and the purported cancer chemopreventive effect of deguelin analogs has been associated with inhibition of phorbol ester-induced ornithine decarboxylase...