BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE

It is a DNA-interacting drug widely used in chemotherapy. It is an anthracycline antibiotic and structurally closely related to daunomycin, and also intercalates DNA. It is commonly used in the treatment of a wide range of cancers. is a DNA-interacting drug widely used in chemotherapy. It is an anthracycline antibiotic and structurally closely related to daunomycin, and also intercalates DNA. It is commonly used in the treatment of a wide range of cancers.

CLINICAL USE

Doxorubicin is commonly used to treat some leukemias, Hodgkin's lymphoma, as well as cancers of the bladder, breast, stomach, lung, ovaries, thyroid, soft tissue sarcoma, multiple myeloma, and others.

Doxorubicin is also used to treat Ewing's tumor; squamous cell carcinomas of the head, neck, cervix, and vagina; carcinomas of the testes, prostate, and uterus; and refractory multiple myeloma.

Also for the treatment of Kaposi’s sarcoma connected to AIDS.

MODE OF ACTION

Doxorubicin has antimitotic and cytotoxic activity through a number of proposed mechanisms of action: Doxorubicin forms complexes with DNA by intercalation between base pairs, and it inhibits topoisomerase II activity by stabilizing the DNA-topoisomerase II complex, preventing the religation portion of the ligation-religation reaction that topoisomerase II catalyzes

STRUCTURE: