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Updated: May 28, 2026

Simple and Fast Rolling Circle Amplification-Based Detection of Topoisomerase 1 Activity in Crude Biological Samples
Published on: December 2, 2022
Ungeremine effectively targets mammalian as well as bacterial type I and type II topoisomerases
Laura Casu1, Filippo Cottiglia, Marco Leonti
1Dipartimento Farmaco Chimico Tecnologico, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
Abstract:
From the methanol extract of the bulbs of Pancratium illyricum L., three phenanthridine type alkaloids, ungeremine (1), (-)-lycorine (2) and (+)-vittatine (3) were isolated. For the evaluation of their anticancer and antibacterial potential, compounds 1-3 were tested against human (I, IIα) and bacterial (IA, IV) topoisomerases. Our data demonstrated that ungeremine impairs the activity of both, human and bacterial topoisomerases. Remarkably, ungeremine was found to largely increments the DNA cleavage promoted by bacterial topoisomerase IA, a new target in antimicrobial chemotherapy.
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