Antitumor spectrum of deoxyspergualin and its lack of cross-resistance to other antitumor agents

Antitumor activities of 15-deoxyspergualin (NKT-01), an analogue of spergualin (SGL), were examined in cultured tumor cells, transplantable murine tumors, and human tumor xenografts in nude mice. NKT-01 exhibited strong antitumor activity specifically against leukemias both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, it also showed activity against AH66F hepatoma, M5076 fibrosarcoma and MH134 hepatoma. However, antitumor activity of NKT-01 against other non-leukemic tumors was marginal. Effective dose range of NKT-01 in sensitive tumors was so wide that the largest chemotherapeutic indexes were produced by NKT-01 in P388 and L1210 leukemias among 15 antitumor agents examined. The efficacy of NKT-01 against doxorubicin- and cytosine arabinoside-resistant P388 leukemias was comparable to that against parental sensitive P388 leukemia. NKT-01 also retained activity against other p388 leukemia sublines resistant to cisplatin, 5-fluorouracil or nimustine, although the effect was slightly decreased. In addition, in the in vitro and in vivo experiments using NKT-01-resistant P388 and SGL-resistant L1210(IMC) leukemias, no cross-resistance was observed. Moreover, collateral sensitivity was observed especially to alkylating agents in animal study.