A Concise Synthesis of the Differentiating Antibiotic L-Azatyrosine

摘要

The treatment of cancers has traditionally relied on cytotoxic agents directed against processing of the DNA or RNA which is requisite for mitogenesis. Agents operating by these mechanisms frequently exhibit undesired collateral toxicity against normal proliferating tissues such as blood progenitors, hair, and gastrointestinal linings. More recently it has become clear that aberrations in cellular signal transduction can cause or contribute to a variety of diseases, including several cancers. Effortsare therefore underway to develop new anticancer drugs directed against pathogenic cell signaling as potentially more selective and less toxic alternative therapies. The Ras family of guanine nucleotide-binding proteins are key mediators in a variety of growth factor and cytokine-dependent signaling pathways, and in mutated form they play major roles in human carcincgensis. Therefore, Ras proteins have become important targets of anticancer drug development.