Anicemycin, a new inhibitor of anchorage-independent growth of tumor cells from Streptomyces sp. TP-A0648.

The anchorage-independence of cells is closely related to their tumorigenicity. In the screening of inhibitors of anchorage-independent growth of tumor cells, anicemycin was isolated from the fermentation broth of an actinomycete strain TP-A0648. The producing strain was isolated from a leaf of Aucuba japonica collected in Toyama, Japan and identified as Streptomyces sp. based on the taxonomic data. The structure of anicemycin was elucidated as a new analog of spicamycin by NMR and MS analysis. Anicemycin inhibited the anchorage-independent growth of the human ovary cancer SKOV-3 cells with an IC50 of 0.015 microM about three times more potently than their anchorage-dependent growth.