Suppression of tumor cell growth and mitogen response by aporphine alkaloids, dicentrine, glaucine, corydine, and apomorphine.

The aporphine alkaloids, dicentrine, glaucine, corydine, and apomorphine were shown to have inhibitory activity against several mouse tumor cell lines, leukemia P388 and L1210, melanoma B16, bladder cancer MBC2, and colon cancer Colon 26 in culture. These aporphine alkaloids also inhibited the mitogen-induced lymphocyte proliferation as well as the growth of IL-2 dependent CTLL2 line in a dose-dependent way. Of the four alkaloids apomorphine proved to be most potent in the inhibitory action. Apomorphine treatment resulted in some prolongation of survival time of the mice inoculated i.p. with P388, although its activity was not enough to meet the standard criterion for antitumor activity.