Bioassay-directed fractionation of a medicinal plant, Polygonum cuspidatum (Polygonaceae), has led to the discovery of a hydroxystilbene, resveratrol [1], as an inhibitor of a protein-tyrosine kinase (p56lck) partially purified from bovine thymus. Both trans and cis isomers of resveratrol possess comparable protein-tyrosine kinase inhibitory activity. Comparison of the IC50 values of resveratrol for protein-tyrosine kinase inhibitory activity with those of piceid (resveratrol-O3-beta-glucoside) [2] and resveratrol-O4'-beta-glucoside [3] shows the requirement of free hydroxyl groups on both phenyl rings for the protein-tyrosine kinase inhibition. Protein kinase C inhibitory analysis suggests the requirements of two free hydroxyl groups on one phenyl ring only.

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Rutaecarpine is an indolopyridoquinazolinone alkaloid isolated from Evodia rutaecarpa and related herbs, which has shown a variety of intriguing biological properties such as anti-thrombotic, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and analgesic, anti-obesity and thermoregulatory, vasorelaxing activity, as well as effects on the cardiovascular and endocrine systems. Recent progress in the studies on the isolation, synthesis, structure-activity relationship studies, biological activities and metabolism of rutaecarpine are reviewed.

BACKGROUND Micrometastases consisting of one to a few cells in lymph nodes resected during gastrectomy are difficult to identify using conventional hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stains. It has been shown that immunostaining for cytokeratins is effective in detecting lymph node micrometastasis in a variety of human tumors, but only a few previous reports demonstrated its use in the treatment of patients with early and advanced gastric carcinoma, and those reports had conflicting results. METHODS In this study, 3625 regional lymph nodes that were dissected in gastrectomy specimens from 153 patients with early‐stage gastric carcinoma (46 patients) and advanced gastric carcinoma (107 patients) were immunostained with the anticytokeratin cocktail AE1/3 for micrometastasis (median, 23 lymph nodes; range, 8–66 lymph nodes). Micrometastasis (MM) was defined as a single tumor cell or clusters of tumor cells that were missed on conventional examination with H&E stains but were detected by immunostaining with broad‐spectrum anticytokeratin antibodies. RESULTS Lymph node metastasis (LNM) was detected in 609 lymph nodes (17%) by H&E staining. MM was identified in another 191 of the remaining lymph nodes (6.3%) from 75 patients. Twenty‐eight of those patients were up‐staged. There was a significant correlation between MM and depth of tumor invasion (P < 0.01). Patients with MM had a decreased 5‐year survival rate (49%) compared with patients without MM (76%) for both early and advanced gastric carcinoma. The effect of MM on survival was most pronounced for patients in the Stage I and LNM negative group. CONCLUSIONS Immunohistochemical examination using broad‐spectrum anticytokeratin antibodies increased the detection rate of LNM and had a significant impact on staging and survival in patients with gastric carcinoma. Cancer 2002;94:2867–73. © 2002 American Cancer Society. DOI 10.1002/cncr.10562