Stauprimide is a semi-synthetic analog of the staurosporine

Staurosporine

Staurosporine is a natural product originally isolated in 1977 from the bacterium Streptomyces staurosporeus.It was the first of over 50 alkaloids to be isolated with this type of bis-indole chemical structure...

 family of indolocarbazole

Indolocarbazole

Indolocarbazoles are a class of compounds that are under current study due to their potential as anti-cancer drugs and the prospective number of derivatives and uses found from the basic backbone alone. First isolated in 1977, a wide range of structures and derivatives have been found or developed...

s. Stauprimide was first published in 1994 as part of an extensive structure-activity investigation to improve the selective inhibition of protein kinase C

Protein kinase C

Protein kinase C also known as PKC is a family of enzymes that are involved in controlling the function of other proteins through the phosphorylation of hydroxyl groups of serine and threonine amino acid residues on these proteins. PKC enzymes in turn are activated by signals such as increases in...

 as a potential antitumor agent. More recently, stauprimide has been shown to increase the efficiency of the directed differentiation of mouse and human embryonic stem cells in synergy with defined extracellular signaling cues. Stauprimide interacts with NME2

NME2

Nucleoside diphosphate kinase B is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the NME2 gene.-Interactions:NME2 has been shown to interact with NME3 and HERC5.-Further reading:...

 (PUF) transcription factor to down-regulate c-Myc

Myc

Myc is a regulator gene that codes for a transcription factor. In the human genome, Myc is located on chromosome 8 and is believed to regulate expression of 15% of all genes through binding on Enhancer Box sequences and recruiting histone acetyltransferases...

expression, leading to differentiation of stem cells.