Cyclopean sheep give cancer hope

摘要

Back in 1957, shepherds in the mountainous US state of Idaho discovered that when pregnant sheep ate lilies of the species Veratrum californicum (California corn lily or Californian false hellebore) they tended to give birth to lambs with a single eye in the centre of the forehead, a condition known, for obvious reasons, as cyclopia. Researchers found that the condition was triggered by a steroidal alkaloid to which they not unpredictably gave the name "cyclopamine".