Gancidin, An Antitumor Substance Derived from Streptomyces Sp. I.

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The search for antibiotics active against neoplastic cells has made much encouraging progress lately. The discovery of the effectiveness of actinomycin C against S 37 Sarcoma of mice and Walker carcinoma of rats by Hackmann¹, of a new antitumor substance, sarkomycin^{2, 3, 4} by Umezawa, et al., azaserin⁵, by Stock, et al., carzinophilin⁶ and mitomycin⁷ by Hata, et al., and carcinomycin^{8, 9} by Hosoya and Soeda have been reported. Trichomycin⁹ and puromycin^{10, 11} were also proved to have antitumor activity. Although the results have not been so dramatic and decisive as the effect of the antibacterial antibiotics in the treatment of bacterial and rickettsial infections in the last dacade, there are bright prospect of bringing such substances into practical use.

In our laboratory, an antitumor substance was obtained from the culture fluid of a strain of streptomyces and its crude powder showed definite antitumor activity against Ehrlich ascites carcinoma in mouse^{12, 13, 14} and there were several evidences that the substances, named gancidin, was not identical with any of the known antibiotics which were reported to be active against malignant tumor.

The results of experiments on its production, extraction, in vitro and in vivo activities, properties, and toxicity are reported herein.