Abstract
Summary
The therapeutic activity of narcissus alkaloid pretazettine HCl (PTZ) on established Rauscher leukemia has been demonstrated and compared with the isomer tazettine (TZ) and an antibiotc, streptonigrin (SN). PTZ and SN showed remarkable prolongation effect on the life span of the leukemic mice and the antiviral activity has been confirmed in mouse 3T3 cells infected with Rauscher virus. TZ showed no significant activity in the leukemic mice and was inhibitory to the virus growth in the cells at much higher doses than PTZ. It is suggested that the stereochemical rearrangement from PTZ to TZ inactivates the biological activity of PTZ.
We thank Dr. M. A. Chirigos of NIH for supplying streptonigrin; Dr. S. A. Aaronson of NIH for supplying mouse 3T3 cells; and Dr. A. Hackett of Naval Biomed. Res. Lab., Calif., for supplying XC cells.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.