A Practical Synthesis of L-Azatyrosine

Oncogenic Ras genes and the G-proteins which they encode are important targets for anticancer research. Ras proteins have been implicated to function as components of the cellular signal transduction pathways related to cell proliferation and differentiation. In their oncogenic form, the natural GTP-ase activity of Ras proteins is inhibited, leading to overstimulation of the signaling pathway for cell growth. The potential importance of oncogenic Ras genes and gene products as targets for cancer chemotherapy is underscored by the observation that up to 40% of human colon tumors and 95% of human pancreatic tumors have been found to contain oncogenic Ras genes.