The mechanism of action, leakage of cytochrome c from mitochondria into cytosol, for the antineoplastic compound glyfoline was examined. Additionally, our current studies revealed that glyfoline induced apoptotic changes and arrested cell cycle procession at the G2/M phase in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). A reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) showed no specific changes of apoptosis-related gene expression (i. e., bax, ICE-α,β, bcl-2, and c-myc). However, no similar changes were detected in fibroblasts and peripheral lymphocytes after glyfoline treatment suggesting that glyfoline has a higher affinity for tumor cells than for normal cells
