Melatonin: Inhibition of Microtubule‐Based Oral Morphogenesis in <i>Stentor coeruleus</i>

Banerjee, Sourav; Kerr, Valerie J.; Winston, M.; Kelleher, Joanne K.; Margulis, Lynn

doi:10.1111/j.1550-7408.1972.tb03423.x

Cited by 37 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…The role of nuclear binding sites, which has been debated in terms of putative receptors or elements of DNA protection, will not be discussed here, since this issue does not appear to be definitively settled. However, melatonin also shows a high affinity to calmodulin Antón-Tay 1993, 1996; and has remarkable effects on the cytoskeleton, not only in mammalian cells (Benítez-King and Antón-Tay 1993), but also in entirely different organisms, including a unicell, Stentor coeruleus (Banerjee et al 1972), and plants (Jackson 1969;Banerjee and Margulis 1973). The latter effects were described at a time when nobody had detected melatonin in the respective taxa.…”

Section: Melatonin Calcium and Nitric Oxidementioning

confidence: 92%

New actions of melatonin and their relevance to biometeorology

Hardeland

1997

Int J Biometeorol

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Melatonin is not only produced by the pineal gland, retina and parietal but also by various other tissues and cells from vertebrates, invertebrates, fungi, plants, multicellular algae and by unicells. In plants, many invertebrates and unicells, its concentration often exceeds that found in vertebrate blood by several orders of magnitude. The action of melatonin is highly pleiotropic. It involves firstly, direct effects, via specific binding sites in various peripheral tissues and cells of vertebrates, including immunomodulation; secondly, systemic influences on the cytoskeleton and nitric oxide formation, mediated by calmodulin; and thirdly, antioxidative protection, perhaps also in the context of photoprotection in plants and unicells. In some dinoflagellates, melatonin conveys temperature signals. On the basis of these comparisons, melatonin appears to mediate and modulate influences from several major environmental factors, such as the photoperiod, radiation intensity and temperature.

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Section: Melatonin Calcium and Nitric Oxidementioning

confidence: 92%

New actions of melatonin and their relevance to biometeorology

Hardeland

1997

Int J Biometeorol

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“…Trifluralin even modulates the chemosensory response of the dinoflagellate Crypthecondinium cohnii (20). For the ciliates, trifluralin inhibits microtubule-based oral structure regeneration of Stentor coeruleus; it inhibits cell division of Paramecium tetraurelia (3,23). Oryzalin even increases a-tubulin mRNA transcription of Tetrahymena thermophila (31).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structure-function analysis of antimicrotubule dinitroanilines against promastigotes of the parasitic protozoan Leishmania mexicana

Chan

Tzeng

Emge

et al. 1993

Antimicrob Agents Chemother

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Although leishmaniasis is a major tropical disease, the currently available drugs are toxic and inadequate.We show that the antimicrotubule herbicide trifluralin has antileishmania activity. The present study aimed at deducing the relationship between the structure of the molecule and its antiprotozoan activity. Nine dinitroanilines, all of which were analogs of trifluralin, were compared. We found that pendimethalin was 2.5-fold more potent than trifluralin, and the higher efficacy may be correlated with molecular structural features that increase the accessibility to one nitro group. This association was further supported by molecular modeling. Moreover, trifluralin samples from two sources differed in their activities by more than threefold, and gas column chromatography showed that impurities were present in the more potent sample.Leishmaniasis is a major tropical disease affecting 12 million people (33). Pentavalent antimonial agents and pentamidine have been the recommended treatment for this disease since the second world war (8). However, they cause severe adverse side effects and failure of treatment is not uncommon; therefore, better, less toxic therapeutic drugs are urgently needed. We discovered that trifluralin and oryzalin, antimicrotubule dinitroaniline herbicides, inhibit leishmania proliferation and infectivity (4-7). Moreover, in addition to being effective against Leishmania spp., trifluralin is effective against the in vitro proliferation of Trypanosoma brucei trypomastigotes (6, 14) and the intraerythrocytic forms of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum (22). Thus, trifluralin is effective against several species of protozoan parasites.Trifluralin and oryzalin belong to a class of compounds known as the dinitroanilines ( Fig. 1 MATERIALS AND METHODSDinitroanilines. Trifluralin and benfluralin were obtained from two sources: Dow Elanco and Riedel-de Haen. Oryzalin and ethalfluralin were provided by Dow Elanco, and dinitramine and prodiamine were provided by Sandoz. Fluchloralin, nitralin, pendimethalin, and profluralin were purchased from Riedel-de Haen through the U.S. distributor Crescent Chemicals (Hauppauge, N.Y.).Promastigote assay. Dinitroanilines were dissolved according to the following protocol. The compounds were first dissolved in acetone as a 100 mM solution. Then they were diluted in 0.1% acetone-liver infusion tryptose (27) medium that had been prewarmed to 65°C. Solutions of 1 mM (1/100 dilution) and 0.5 mM (1/2 dilution) were made from the acetone stocks and then were made to the final concentrations by using 10-fold serial dilutions.

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“…Melatonin is known to interact with neuronal microtubules [6] and competes with microtubule--disruptive drugs like Vinblastine and Colchicine [4,61]. Piezzi and Cavicchia [35] studied morphological changes in microtubules of toad sciatic nerve under melatonin administration and they found that the majority of microtubules of sciatic nerve of both control and melatonin-treated groups showed disintegration after 2 h of cooling.…”

Section: Toxicity After Melatonin Administrationmentioning

confidence: 99%