Stemcell, 72072, Cyclopamine

Cyclopamine is a steroid alkaloid that inhibits the Hedgehog pathway at the point of the pathway activator Smoothened. Cyclopamine binds to the heptahelical bundle of Smoothened, a G protein-coupled receptor, and prevents it from signaling further downstream (Chen et al.).

MAINTENANCE

· Reduces proliferation of rat neural progenitor cells and mouse neurospheres (Lai et al.; Palma and Ruiz i Altaba).

· Reduces proliferation of mouse mammospheres (Liu et al.).

DIFFERENTIATION

· Promotes differentiation of pancreatic cells from human embryonic stem cells (D'Amour et al.).

CANCER RESEARCH

· Inhibits the growth of human and mouse medulloblastoma cells, and human glioblastoma cells (Bar et al.; Berman et al.).