Abstract
CROTON oil is a complex lipid mixture obtained from the seeds of Croton tiglium L. (family Euphorbiaceae), a leafy shrub native to India and Ceylon. This oil has been used medicinally for its counterirritant, vesicant, and cathartic properties (a practice long since abandoned for humans). It is also a potent promoter of tumour formation in mouse skin1. The active principles of croton oil have been isolated and identified as diesters of the diterpene alcohol phorbol, of which 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) is the most active biologically2,3. TPA induces changes in cellular morphology4, stimulates cell division5,6, and is the most powerful tumour promoter known2,3,7. The extremely low doses needed to elicit these responses (10−8–10−6 M in vitro and 17 × 10−9 mol per application in vivo), plus the fact that minor structural changes in TPA eliminate its activity2,6, indicate that the interaction with the target cells is structurally specific and TPA is therefore a valuable tool for examining not only the control of DNA synthesis and cell division, but also those events controlling tumour formation.
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ROHRSCHNEIDER, L., BOUTWELL, R. Phorbol Esters, Fatty Acids and Tumour Promotion. Nature New Biology 243, 212–213 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/newbio243212a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/newbio243212a0
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