Under the generic name of “quinoxaline antibiotic”, six antibiotics are known, i.e. quinomycins A, Band C, and triostins A, Band C. In 1961, when Katagari and Sugiura1) tested the effect of quinomycins A, B and C, and triostin complex on 34 transplantable tumors in the mouse, rat, hamster and chicken, they noticed the selective activity of quinomycin A on rat tumors and of quinomycin C as well as triostin complex on mouse tumors. Quinomycin B was inactive in a practical sense. Thus these antibiotics, though related in chemical structure, can be said not to be related as far as their antitumor activities are concerned.
This kind of biological specificity of the quinoxaline antibiotics also holds true with the bacterial resistance to the antibiotic. No or little cross-resistance was observed with the Staphylococcus aureus strains resistant to quinomycins A, C and triostin C2).
In an effort to establish the selective activity of respective compound more clearly, two ascites type tumors, Ehlrich carcinoma in mice and ascites hepatoma AH-130 in rats, were treated with quinomycins A,C and triostin C, and total packed cell volume (TPCV) was examined to evaluate the effect in a quantitative manner. These results will be reported in this communication.
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