Mitomycin C

General Description

• Mitomycin C is a methylazirinopyrroloindoledione compound isolated from the bacterium Streptomyces caespitosus, and other Streptomyces bacterial species that has antineoplastic and antibiotic activities
• This compound acts as an inhibitor of DNA synthesis, nuclear division, as well as an apoptosis inducer. It can create oxygen radicals, and produce inter-strand DNA crosslinks, inhibiting DNA synthesis
• Mitomycin C shows alkylating activity and mainly targets the guanine nucleoside sequence 5′-CpG-3′. It inhibits DNA synthesis by covalently reacting with DNA, forming crosslinks between complementary strands of DNA. Consequently, this interaction prevents the separation of complementary DNA strands, inhibiting DNA replication

Application

• Mitomycin C is active against a broad-spectrum of gram-positive, gram-negative, and acid-fast bacilli bacteria
• Mitomycin C has strong antineoplastic activity, mainly against Ehrlich ascites tumor cell lines
• This compound can inhibit B and T cells and macrophage proliferation. It can also impair antigen presentation, as well as the secretion of interferon-γ, TNF- α, and IL-2
• This compound is used to generate mitotically inactive feeder cells in cell culture systems, such as the mitotically inactive fibroblasts used in embryonic stem cell systems
• It has been used to treat basal-like cancer cell line in vitro experiments
• It is particularly toxic to hypoxic cells inhibiting RNA and protein synthesis at high concentrations