Frontiers in Bioscience-Elite (FBE) is published by IMR Press from Volume 13 Issue 2 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
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The deregulated activity of the Bcr-Abl tyrosine kinase provides a rational basis for the development therapeutics in all phases of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). Although a well studied imatinib therapy has clinical success against CML, resistance to imatinib due to mutations in the kinase domain, especially T315I poses a major problem for the ultimate success of CML therapy by this agent. Herein we describe an NPB001-05, derived from extract of Piper betle leafs, which is highly active in specifically inhibiting Bcr-Abl expressing cells. NPB001-05 inhibited the proliferation of BaF3 cells ectopically expressing wild type Bcr-Abl phenotype and 12 different imatinib-resistant mutations of clinical relevance (average IC50 5.7 µg/ml). Moreover, NPB001-05 was highly inhibitory to wild type P210Bcr-Abl and P210Bcr-Abl-T315I kinase activity and abrogated the autophosphorylating enzyme in time- and dose- dependent manner. NPB001-05 was non-toxic on normal cells, but was inhibitory to CML patient derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Treatment with NPB001-05 caused apoptosis induction and G0G1 cell cycle arrest in both Bcr-Abl wild type and T315I mutant cell lines.