Epothilones are potential anticancer drugs that stabilize microtubules in a manner similar to paclitaxel (Taxol). Epothilones are produced from the myxobacterium Sorangium cellulosum, which has a 16-h doubling time and produces only milligram-per-liter amounts of epothilone A and epothilone B. Furthermore, genetic manipulation of S. cellulosum is difficult. To produce epothilones in a more gene...

The synthesis of two deoxygenated analogues of potent epothilones is reported in an effort to analyze the relative importance of molecular conformation and ligand-target interactions to biological activity. 7-deoxy-epothilone D and 7-deoxy-(S)-14-methoxy-epothilone D were prepared through total synthesis and shown to maintain the conformational preferences of their biologically active parent co...

The structural information of small therapeutic compounds complexed in biological matrices is important for drug developments. However, structural studies on ligands bound to such a large and dynamic system as microtubules are still challenging. This article reports an application of the solid-state NMR technique to investigating the bioactive conformation of epothilone B, a microtubule stabili...

The design, chemical synthesis, and biological evaluation of a series of cyclopropyl and cyclobutyl epothilone analogues (3-12, Figure 1) are described. The synthetic strategies toward these epothilones involved a Nozaki-Hiyama-Kishi coupling to form the C15-C16 carbon-carbon bond, an aldol reaction to construct the C6-C7 carbon-carbon bond, and a Yamaguchi macrolactonization to complete the re...

BACKGROUND The small cell ovarian carcinoma of the hypercalcemic type (SCCOHT) which preferably affects young women during regenerative age represents a rare and aggressive form of ovarian tumors with poor prognosis and lacks an efficient therapy. METHODS AND RESULTS In vitro chemotherapy testing in a fluorescence assay using a recently developed cellular model from a recurrent SCCOHT reveale...

The structure of epothilone A, bound to , -tubulin in zinc-stabilized sheets, was determined by a combination of electron crystallography at 2.89 angstrom resolution and nuclear magnetic resonance–based conformational analysis. The complex explains both the broad-based epothilone structureactivity relationship and the known mutational resistance profile. Comparison with Taxol shows that the lon...

Epothilones (Epo’s) are bacterial natural products which are potent inhibitors of human cancer cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo. Tumor growth inhibition is based on the stabilization of cellular microtubules and at least seven epothilone-derived agents are presently undergoing clinical evaluation in humans. While all of these compounds are closely related structurally to the natural prod...

Microtubule stabilizers are powerful antimitotic compounds and represent a proven cancer treatment strategy. Several classes of compounds in clinical use or trials, such as the taxanes and epothilones, bind to the same region of β-tubulin. Determining how these molecules interact with tubulin and stabilize microtubules is important both for understanding the mechanism of action and enhancing ch...