Description
Lycorine is an alkaloid found in plants in the Amaryllidaceae family; it exhibits antifungal, anti-parasitic, and anticancer activities. Lycorine inhibits protein synthesis by preventing amino acid incorporation info proteins, potentially through the inhibition of peptidyltransferases. Lycorine inhibits the growth of many fungi, including Fusarium. Additionally, lycorine induces cell cycle arrest and cell death in Trichomonas. This compound also induces G0/G1 phase cell cycle arrest, inhibits activity of histone deacetylases (HDACs), upregulates expression of p53 and p21, downregulates expression of cyclin D1 and CDK4, and inhibits growth in chromic myelogenous leukemia (CML) cells.
References
Shen JW, Ruan Y, Ren W, et al. Lycorine: a potential broad-spectrum agent against crop pathogenic fungi. J Microbiol Biotechnol. 2014 Mar 28;24(3):354-8. PMID: 24346469.
Li L, Dai HJ, Ye M, et al. Lycorine induces cell-cycle arrest in the G0/G1 phase in K562 cells via HDAC inhibition. Cancer Cell Int. 2012 Nov 23;12(1):49. PMID: 23176676.
Giordani RB, Vieira Pde B, Weizenmann M, et al. Lycorine induces cell death in the amitochondriate parasite, Trichomonas vaginalis, via an alternative non-apoptotic death pathway. Phytochemistry. 2011 May;72(7):645-50. PMID: 21324496.
Yui S, Mikami M, Mimaki Y, et al. Inhibition effect of Amaryllidaceae alkaloids, lycorine and lycoricidinol on macrophage TNF-alpha production. Yakugaku Zasshi. 2001 Feb;121(2):167-71. PMID: 11218731.
Kukhanova M, Victorova L, Krayevsky A. Peptidyltransferase center of ribosomes. On the mechanism of action of alkaloid lycorine. FEBS Lett. 1983 Aug 22;160(1-2):129-33. PMID: 6350039.
