Mechanism of Colcbicine-Mitosis 417 



thai inositol may become changed into glucose in the cells. How- 

 ever, in Allium, it was demonstnitecl that the isomer ol hexacyclo- 

 chlorohexane, which could not act as an antagonist to ineso-inos\io\, 

 was also a spindle poison, and that no true protection was offered by 

 meso-'\no^\io\ against the effects of Gammexane.i'' y^g different tem- 



Cl Cl OH OH 



CH CH Cl CH CH OH 



/ \l / \l 



CH Cl CH CH OH CH 



i \l / I \i / 



Cl CH CH OH CH CH 



Cl OH 



(XVIII) -'-Hexachlorocyclohexane (XIX) Meso-lnositol 



("Gammexane") 



peratines at which the experiments were conducted may explain the 

 conflicting results. 



Two papers published in 1951 renewed interest in this problem. 

 In the first, the authors who discovered the action of //u'5o-inositol 

 first in plants, brought forward evidence that a similar antagonism 

 existed in rat fibroblast cultures. '^^ Here, for the first 12 hours, no 

 difference Avas observed between colchicine alone and colchicine -j- 

 inositol, but in the following hours, while the colchicine mitoses re- 

 mained arrested, the cultures treated with inositol recovered almost 

 completely. 1 his period of 12 hours during which, quite contrary to 

 the plant experiments, inositol does not prove to have any effect, ex- 

 cept that of lowering the total numbers of mitoses, is considered to 

 correspond to the duration of interkinesis. The authors suggest that 

 ?nejo-inositol may "allow the cell to prepare for a new mitosis," which 

 is surprising, for this would lead one to think that there is no true 

 detoxication of c-mitoses, similar to that of arsenite by BAL, and that 

 these degenerate, and are no longer counted, while other cells enter 

 mitosis. However difficult the interpretation of these results may 

 seem to be, it is significant that neither sucrose, glucose, ribose, sor- 

 bitol, nor even rf-inositol, ineso-'xno^ose or e/?/-inosose are capable of 

 altering the action of colchicine.'^^ 



This result is also in contradiction with the facts observed in plant 

 cells, and no conclusion can be drawn at this time. One interesting 

 report, given only in a short note, is that some enzymes of bacterial 

 origin capable of oxidizing inositol are inhibited by colchicine and 

 the parent substances, tropolone and 4, 5-tetramethylene-tropolone.^^'- 

 ^-^ Further results on this aspect of the colchicine problem are eagei ly 



