Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0027819 (neuroblastoma)
 27,800 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Modern screening methods have been used for a variety of new natural products. By taking advantage of the side effects of erythromycin, a derivative, EM523, and several related substances (motilides) have been synthesized. These compounds are agonists of the peptide hormone, motilin. By screening for microbial metabolites which may substitute for biologically active peptides, we discovered lactacystin. It has nerve growth-factor-like activity and induces differentiation in mouse neuroblastoma Neuro2A cells. An inhibitor of protein kinase, staurosporine, a microbial alkaloid found by chemical screening, has a variety of pharmacological activities, such as the relaxation of rabbit aortic strips and the inhibition of changes in platelet shape induced with phorbol myristate acetate. Triacsin, an inhibitor of acetyl-CoA synthetase, which was isolated from Streptomyces sp. SK-1894, potentiated platelet-activating factor production of A23187-treated rat polymorphonuclear leukocytes. Phthoxazolin, an inhibitor of cellulose biosynthesis isolated from Streptomyces sp. OM-5714, inhibited the growth of velvet leaf when treated after its emergence. These products provide examples of the possible utility of newly discovered microbial metabolites.
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PMID:The expanded horizon for microbial metabolites--a review. 161 29

Tumor cells have a high tolerance for acidic and hypoxic microenvironments, also producing abundant lactic acid through accelerated glycolysis in the presence or absence of O(2). While the accumulation of lactate is thought to be a major contributor to the reduction of pH-circumscribing aggressive tumors, it is not known if other endogenous metabolic products contribute this acidity. Furthermore, anaerobic metabolism in cancer cells bears similarity to homo-fermentative lactic acid bacteria, however very little is known about an alternative pathway that may drive adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production independent of glycolysis. In this study, we quantify over 40 end-products (amines, acids, alcohols, aldehydes, or ketones) produced by malignant neuroblastoma under accelerated glycolysis (+glucose (GLU) supply 1-10 mM) +/- mitochondrial toxin; 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP(+)) to abate aerobic respiration to delineate differences between anaerobic vs. aerobic cell required metabolic pathways. The data show that an acceleration of anaerobic glycolysis prompts an expected reduction in extracellular pH (pH(ex)) from neutral to 6.7 +/- 0.006. Diverse metabolic acids associated with this drop in acidity were quantified by ionic exchange liquid chromatography (LC), showing concomitant rise in lactate (Ctrls 7.5 +/- 0.5 mM; +GLU 12.35 +/- 1.3 mM; +GLU + MPP 18.1 +/- 1.8 mM), acetate (Ctrl 0.84 +/- 0.13 mM: +GLU 1.3 +/- 0.15 mM; +GLU + MPP 2.7 +/- 0.4 mM), fumarate, and a-ketoglutarate (<10 microM) while a range of other metabolic organic acids remained undetected. Amino acids quantified by o-phthalaldehyde precolumn derivatization/electrochemical detection-LC show accumulation of L: -alanine (1.6 +/- .052 mM), L: -glutamate (285 +/- 9.7 microM), L: -asparagine (202 +/- 2.1 microM), and L: -aspartate (84.2 +/- 4.9 microM) produced during routine metabolism, while other amino acids remain undetected. In contrast, the data show no evidence for accumulation of acetaldehyde, aldehydes, or ketones (Purpald/2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine-Brady's reagent), acetoin (Voges-Proskauer test), or alcohols (NAD(+)-linked alcohol dehydrogenase). In conclusion, these results provide preliminary evidence to suggest the existence of an active pyruvate-alanine transaminase or phosphotransacetylase/acetyl-CoA synthetase pathway to be involved with anaerobic energy metabolism of cancer cells.
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PMID:Evaluation of endogenous acidic metabolic products associated with carbohydrate metabolism in tumor cells. 1978 59