Mensacarcin is a stereogenic complex polyketide with potent anti-tumor activity produced by a soil-dwelling Streptomyces bottropensis. The US National Cancer Institute (NCI) 60 human tumor cell line anticancer drug screen (NCI-60) reveals mensacarcin’s cytostatic properties in almost all tested cell lines and distinct cytotoxic properties specifically in eight melanoma cell...
The discovery of new antibiotics reached its peak during the golden era of antibiotics in the mid 20th century and continued to thrive until the 1980s. However, after more than 50 years of fruitful exploration and exploitation of microbial natural products the discovery rate of new antibiotics has dropped drastically...
Our quest for pharmaceutically important marine natural products led to re-isolation of known mandelalides A-D and identification of new congeners E-L from re-collected South African Lissoclinum tunicate specimens. Mandelalides A, B, and L were characterized as selective cancer cell toxins, with an unusual activity profile influenced by their glycosylation /...
Having excess weight carries a negative social stigma in the U.S. Previous research has shown that experiencing stigma has negative physical and mental health consequences. Few studies have examined how experiencing weight stigma might act as a barrier to engaging in healthy behaviors among older adults. The purpose of this...
Phospholipase C-Jβ (PLCβ) is an important effector enzyme in G-protein-coupled
signaling pathways. Activation of PLCβ by Gα and Gβy subunits has been fairly well
characterized, but little is known about other protein interactions that may also
regulate PLCβ function. A yeast two-hybrid screen of a mouse brain cDNA library
with...
Tuberculoѕiѕ (TB) iѕ a number one killer among treatable infectious diseases. It is caused by the pathogenic bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculoѕiѕ that primarily affects the lungѕ. It infects one third of the world population and kills approximately 2 million people each year (based on WHO report). Drug-reѕiѕtant TB haѕ become a...
The mechanisms by which the activities of phospholipase C-β (PLC-β) enzymes are negatively regulated have not been well defined. We used cardiac-derived ratmyoblast H9c2 cells to investigate possible modes of regulation of PLC-β3 enzymes,the only endogenous β isoform abundantly found in these cells. The PLC-β3population in these cells was detected...
Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, the fungal kingdom has remained a fertile source for the discovery of new, biologically active, natural products. Further, as natural products continue to be discovered from fungi, a deeper understanding of the critical role of specialized metabolism in fungal ecology is afforded. The...
Metabolomics is a comprehensive analysis of small molecules, or metabolites, in a system. Metabolomics is a hypothesis-generating experiment and offers an unbiased analysis of cell metabolism that can aid in the understanding of fundamental biological processes. Metabolomics is widely and broadly applicable in the biological sciences and has been used...
Recent developments in NMR hardware have extended the reach of natural products chemists to structure elucidation of compounds isolated on a nanomolar scale. In parallel with advances in hardware new NMR techniques for structure elucidation have evolved, e.g. quantitative NOEs, residual dipolar couplings (RDCs)and diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY). The application of...