The objective of this paper is to review the data supporting the use of docetaxel in the treatment of breast cancer, focusing on pharmacokinetics, efficacy in adjuvant and metastatic trials alone and in combination with chemotherapeutic and targeted agents, and the toxicity of docetaxel in comparison to paclitaxel. Docetaxel is a semisynthetic product derived from the European yew tree Taxus ba...

Declines in leaf hydraulic conductance (Kleaf) with increasing water stress have been attributed to cavitation of the leaf xylem. However, in the leaves of conifers, the reversible collapse of transfusion tracheids may provide an alternative explanation. Using Taxus baccata, a conifer species without resin, we developed a modified rehydration technique that allows the separation of declines in ...

This method development was to confirm the fatal ingestion of toxic yew plant material in postmortem samples (stomach content, urine, femoral blood, cardiac blood, bile, and brain tissue) collected from a 22-year-old man who committed suicide by ingesting yew leaves. The analytical method was based on a liquid-liquid extraction under alkaline conditions followed by LC-MS-MS analysis. Chromatogr...

Considering the importance of natural products in cancer therapy, a preliminary investigation on some anticancer medicinal plants of north-eastern states of India was conducted in murine tumor model. Nine different plants such as Ageratum conizoides Linn. (Asteraceae), Blumea lanceolaria Linn. (Asteraceae), Dillenia pentagyna Roxb. (Dilleniaceae), Potentilla fulgens Wall. (Rosaceae), Taxus bacc...

Different yew species contain poisonous taxane alkaloids which serve as resources for semi-synthesis of anticancer drugs. The highly variable amounts of taxanes demand new methods for fast characterization of the raw plant material and the isolation of the target structures during phyto extraction. For that purpose, applicability of different vibrational spectroscopy methods in goods receipt of...

Taxotere (RP 56976; NSC 628503; N-debenzoyl-N-tert-butoxycarbonyl-10-deacetyl taxol) is a new microtubule stabilizing agent. It is obtained by semisynthesis from a noncytotoxic precursor extracted from the needles of the tree, Taxus baccata L. Taxotere was evaluated for antitumor activity against a variety of transplantable tumors of mice. Taxotere had no marked schedule dependency and was foun...

The time-course of expression of dbat and dbtnbt genes involved in the later steps of paclitaxel biosynthesis and the intracellular taxane accumulation were investigated through a 64-day subculture interval of VI/M1 and VI/M2 Taxus baccata callus cultures. HPLC proved traces of baccatin III and an intracellular content of paclitaxel up to 90 microg/g DW. The steady-state of the respective gene ...