Colchicine is an alkaloid that is used clinically in the treatment of arthritic gout. This potent microtubule disrupting agent has also been used extensively as an experimental tool in studies characterizing the role of the cytoskeleton in a variety of cellular processes. Colchicine has also been used as a selective neurotoxin and in animal models of Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy. Although t...

Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is characterized by recurrent acute attacks of fever and serositis, and colchicine is the primary treatment. The pathogenesis of the disease has not been fully understood. Resistance to colchicine remains to be a problem in up to 30% of the patients and yet there seems to be no alternative treatment. In this study our objective was to investigate whether a sel...

Segments of epididymal adipose tissue from normal male rats were incubated with micromolar concentrations of colchicine for different periods of time up to 4 hr, and the mobilization of free fatty acids (FFA) was measured during a subsequent reincubation. Although pretreatment with colchicine did not alter basal unstimulated FFA release, mobilization of FFA in the presence of epinephrine or the...

Colchicine, a plant alkaloid, is a potent inhibitor of mitosis and other physiological processes that involve microtubules. These effects are mediated by the specific binding of colchicine to a high-affinity receptor site on tubulin, the major protein of microtubules. It seemed possible that the colchicine site on tubulin might also be the receptor for endogenous cellular molecules. We now repo...

In spite of the many papers published on colchicine and its influence on cell division, an ac ceptable explanation for the mode of action of this drug is not yet available. There is also still much uncertainty about the action of colchicine and its derivatives on tumors. Ludford (13), using tumors and tissue culture, suggests that colchicine increases the viscosity of cell protoplasm. Northen (...

Tubulin, the subunit protein of microtubules, undergoes a time-dependent loss of functional properties known as decay. We have previously shown that the drug 2-(4-fluorophenyl)- -(2-chloro-3,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-3-methyl-6-phenyl-4(1H)-pyridinone (IKP104) accelerates decay, but that in the presence of colchicine, IKP104 becomes a stabilizer of tubulin. To see if this is due to conformational effe...

Colchicine, is an old and well-known drug, used for treatment of rheumatic diseases. Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea are the clinical symptoms of colchicine poisoning. Cardiotoxicity can lead to mortality. We report a case of colchicine intoxication complicated with complete heart block. A 9-year-old patient ingesting colchicine 0.4-0.5 mg/kg was transferred because of elevation ...

Microtubules have been shown to alter contraction in cardiac myocytes through changes in cellular stiffness. However, an effect on excitation-contraction coupling has not been examined. Here we analyze the effects of microtubule disruption by 1 micromol/L colchicine on calcium currents (I(Ca)) and [Ca(2+)](i) transients in rat ventricular myocytes. I(Ca) was studied using the whole-cell patch-c...

KITANI, K., KANAI, S. and NOKTJBO, M. The Effect of Bucolome on the Biliary Excretion of Colchicine in the Rat. Tohoku J. exp. Med., 1981, 133 (4), 389-397 The biliary excretion of intravenously administered [14C]-colchicine was compared for 2 hr between control rats and rats treated with Bucolome (5-n-butyl1-cyclohexyl-2,4,6-trioxoperhydropyrimidine, 200 mg/kg, i.p.). In the first 10-min perio...

Differential susceptibility to microtubule agents has been demonstrated between mammalian cells and kinetoplastid organisms such as Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma spp. The aims of this study were to identify and characterize the architecture of the putative colchicine binding site of Leishmania spp. and investigate the molecular basis of colchicine resistance. We cloned and sequenced the β-tub...