ABSTRACT
Prevention tactics have been broadly implemented for management of heart disease, and it is generally accepted that cancer can be managed to some extent through chemopreventive intervention. Chemopreventive activities of promising agents are studied for their inhibitory effects in the two-stage mouse skin carcinogenesis model or the rat mammary gland carcinogenesis model. A considerable number of known cancer chemopreventive agents are naturally occurring, it is reasonable to assume additional entities with desirable preventative activities exist in nature. Through coordinated efforts of isolation and chemistry, the lead compounds are characterized in well-established animal models for definition of cancer chemopreventive efficacy. Use of in vitro assays permits the identification of a suitable number of lead starting materials, and bioassay-directed isolation enables the procurement of active agents from a reasonable number of sources in a finite period of time. Re-isolation of compounds from Pbysalis philadelphica is in progress in order to permit the conduct of in vivo chemoprevention studies.
