# PLANT ANTITUMOR AGENTS:  ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO · 1989 · $128,572

## Abstract

Various chemotherapeutic regimens are often employed in the treatment of
human neoplastic diseases.  As exemplified by the frequent administration
of vincristine, chemical agents demonstrating a high degree of clinical
efficacy occur naturally in plants.  Characterization of the molecular
structures of (or biochemical mechanisms facilitated by) naturally occuring
substances has also largely contributed to the clinical success
demonstrated by antineoplastic agents produced synthetically.  We currently
propose to isolate and structurally characterize endogenous antineoplastic
agents from approximately 24 plants.  Individual crude extracts derived
from these plants are known to enhance the survival time of P388 leukemic
mice, suggesting that the active principle(s) may be of practical use for
the treatment of cancer.  On the basis of chemotaxonomic relationships and
the global regions from which these plants were derived, it can be
predicted that the pure, biologically active substances should be
structurally unique, and perhaps function by novel biochemical mechanisms.
Routine methods of isolation and structure elucidation will generally be
employed.  Additionally, however, innovative procedures of isolation will
be investigated which may represent significant contributions to the
field.  For monitoring the effectiveness of the purification procedures and
quantitating the biological activity of the resulting pure isolates, in
vitro mammalian cell culture assays will be used.  Attempts will be made to
enhance the correlation of results obtained with in vitro cell culture
assays with those obtained with in vivo antitumor assays by utilization of
enzyme systems capable of metabolizing (potential) antitumor agents to
active species.  Conversely, metabolic inactivation may be observed and
this should be equally relevant to the predication of results which would
be obtained following administration of the agent to intact animals.  The
metabolites of pure compounds demonstrating altered biological activity
when subjected to these experimental conditions will be structurally
characterized to provide information relevant to structure-activity
relationships which may indicate that synthetic derivatives could be
prepared that would be highly active antitumor agents.  Finally, suitable
quantities of sufficiently active antineoplastic agents will be supplied
for evaluation in systems such as the National Cancer Institute tumor
panel; this represents an initial step toward the ultimate goal of
providing a chemotherapeutic agent worthy of human administration.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3170979
- **Project number:** 2R01CA033047-04A3
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
- **SAM.gov UEI:** W8XEAJDKMXH3
- **Principal Investigator:** NORMAN R FARNSWORTH
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1989
- **Award amount:** $128,572
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 1983-07-01 → 1991-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3170979

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3170979, PLANT ANTITUMOR AGENTS:  ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION (2R01CA033047-04A3). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3170979. Licensed CC0.

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