pyronaridine (pnd), a synthetic quinolone derivative frequently prescribed for the treatment of malaria, is a selective and potent multidrug resistance (mdr) modulator of pgp-mediated mdr that inhibits the proliferation of a variety of tumor cells, including myeloid leukemia (k562 and k562/a02), epidermoid carcinoma (kb and kbv200), breast carcinoma (mcf-7 and mcf-7/adr), ovarian carcinoma (skov3, es-2 and pa-1), gastric carcinoma (bgc-823), colon carcinoma (lovo), hepatocellular carcinoma (smmz-7721 and qgy-7703), with the half maximal inhibition concentration ic50 values of 8.3 μm, 5.6 μm, 20.8 μm, 14.5 μm, 9.5 μm, 11 μm, 9.7 μm, 12.9 μm, 15.7 μm, 14.9 μm, 21.4 μm, 10.9 μm and 17.1 μm respectively [1].
[1] qi j, wang s, liu g, peng h, wang j, zhu z, yang c. pyronaridine, a novel modulator of p-glycoprotein-mediated multidrug resistance in tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. biochem biophys res commun. 2004 jul 9;319(4):1124-31.
