A comparative study of the loading and retention properties of three structurally very closely related vinca alkaloids (vincristine, vinorelbine and vinblastine) in liposomal formulations has been performed. All three vinca alkaloids showed high levels of encapsulation when accumulated into egg sphingomyelin/cholesterol vesicles in response to a transmembrane pH gradient generated by the use of...

We have used a structure-activity approach to investigate whether the Vinca alkaloids inhibit cell proliferation primarily by means of their effects on mitotic spindle microtubules or by another mechanism or by a combination of mechanisms. Five Vinca alkaloids were used to investigate the relationship in HeLa cells between inhibition of cell proliferation and blockage of mitosis, alteration of ...

The tubulin vinca domain is the target of widely different microtubule inhibitors that interfere with the binding of vinblastine. Although all these ligands inhibit the hydrolysis of GTP, they affect nucleotide exchange to variable extents. The structures of two vinca domain antimitotic peptides--phomopsin A and soblidotin (a dolastatin 10 analogue)--bound to tubulin in a complex with a stathmi...

This study investigated the antimicrobial activity as well as some phytochemical analysis of ethanol and diethyl ether extracts from plant species Vinca minor L. In vitro antimicrobial activity of extracts was studied on 20 strains of microorganisms (16 bacteria and four yeasts). Testing was performed by microdilution method and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum microbicidal co...

An integrated process coupling solid-liquid extraction and liquid-membrane preconcentration of vincamine was studied. The effect of the ratios solid phase/extractant volume and extractant volume/liquid membrane volume on the mass transfer rate and efficiency of vincamine removal were estimated. It was found that the transfer rate and removal efficiency of the alkaloid were higher with smaller q...

We have isolated fifty-two endophytic fungi (AA-CRL-1 to AA-CRL52) from the leaves of Catharanthus roseus plants collected from different parts of Pune (Maharashtra, India). These endophytic fungi represented different genera and were screened for vinca alkaloids production using TLC and ESI-MS analysis. Out of the 52 endophytic fungal cultures screened, the endophytic culture AA-CRL-20 was fou...

The paper presents a service composition language called VINCA, which differs from many existing ones in its emphasis on enabling business users to visually “program” from business view-point their personalized applications on the basis of Web-based services. VINCA embodies an integrated approach to mediating between diverse, rapidly changing user requirements and composites of individual servi...