Antitumor Activity and DNA as the Target

During the past decades a vast amount of evidence has been obtained that points to interactions of platinum compounds with DNA in the tumor cell as the origin for cytotoxic action. The most important observations are as follows  

Treatment of Escherichia coli bacteria with cis-Pt leads to filamentous growth, due to hampered cell division (1). 

cis-Pt induces lysis in lysogenic bacteria (42) and a good correlation between the antitumor activity and prophage induction has been found. 

Inhibition of mainly DNA synthesis has been shown for Ehrlich ascites cells (43) and human HV3 cells (43a), as studied by the uptake of radiolabeled DNA, RNA, and protein precursors. However, RNA and protein inhibition are still being examined (44). 

The mutagenic properties of cis-Pt result in frameshift and base substitution mutations (45,45a). 

---