Farnesol strongly inhibited growth of a halophilic archaeon, Haloferax volcanii, with an IC50 value of only 2 microM (0.4 microgram/ml) in rich medium and 50 nM (0.01 microgram/ml) in minimal medium without lysis. Other isoprenoid alcohols such as isopentenol, dimethylallyl alcohol, geraniol, and geranylgeraniol at 500 microM did not affect its growth. Mevalonate, which is the precursor of all ...

Intact farnesyl (31R)-bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) c in carbon tetrachloride forms a stable dimer at room temperature characterized by two resonances resolved for each individual proton in the NMR spectrum and by a long wavelength shift of the Qy absorption band to 710 nm. All the proton resonances are precisely assigned on the basis of two-dimensional H-C and H-H correlation experiments. Authent...

Plants of the family Anacardiaceae have a long history of use by various peoples for medicinal and other purposes. Cotinus coggygria, also known as the “smoke tree”, is one of the two species constituting a small genus of the family Anacardiaceae, viz., C. coggygria Scop. (syn.: Rhus cotinus L.) The Iranian smoke tree, plant material air-dried C. coggygria we...

In order to investigate the substrate binding feature of undecaprenyl diphosphate synthase from Micrococcus luteus B-P 26 with respect to farnesyl diphosphate and a reaction intermediate, (Z,E,E)-geranylgeranyl diphosphate, we examined the reactivity of artificial substrate analogs, 3-desmethyl farnesyl diphosphate and 3-desmethyl Z-geranylgeranyl diphosphate, which lack the methyl group at the...

Z-prenyl diphosphate synthases catalyze the sequential condensation of isopentenyl diphosphate with allylic diphosphates to synthesize polyprenyl diphosphates. In mycobacteria, these are precursors of decaprenyl phosphate, a molecule which plays a central role in the biosynthesis of essential mycobacterial cell wall components, such as the mycolyl-arabinogalactan-peptidoglycan complex and lipoa...

Atherosclerosis is a common cardiovascular disease that involves the build-up of plaque on the inner walls of the arteries. Intraplaque neovacularization has been shown to be essential in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Previous studies showed that small-molecule compounds targeting farnesyl transferase have the ability to prevent atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice, but the...

Farnesyl transferase inhibitors (FTI) exhibit anticancer activity as a single agent in preclinical studies and show promise in combination with other therapeutics in clinical trials. Previous studies show that FTIs arrest cancer cells in mitosis; however, the mechanism by which this occurs is unclear. Here, we observed that treatment of various cancer cell lines with the FTI lonafarnib caused m...

In order to obtain information about the reactivity of enzymes in sterol synthesis of yeast, the effects of some detergents were investigated. Among the detergents used, Triton X-100 was found to exert a unique action, and its effect on the incorporation of 14C-labeled acetate, mevalonate, farnesyl pyrophosphate, or S-adenosyl-L-methionine into squalene, 2,3-oxidosqualene, and sterols in a cell...