Antitumor activity of phenylahistin in vitro and in vivo.

Phenylahistin is a new cell cycle inhibitor produced by Aspergillus ustus. Since phenylahistin was produced as a scalemic mixture of (-)-phenylahistin and its enantiomer, we separated each enantiomer and evaluated their antitumor activity in vitro. (-)-Phenylahistin exhibited antitumor activity against 8 tumor cell lines with IC50 values ranging from 1.8 x 10(-7) to 3.7 x 10(-6), while (+)-phenylahistin exhibited 33-100-fold less potent activity than (-)-phenylahistin did. (-)-Phenylahistin also showed antitumor activity against P388 leukemia and Lewis lung carcinoma cells in vivo.