The perpetual pursuit of pain elimination has been constant throughout human history and pervades human cultures. In some ways it is as old as medicine itself. Cultures throughout history have practiced the art of pain management through remedies such as oral ingestion of herbs or techniques believed to have special properties. In fact, even Hippocrates wrote about the practice of trepanation, ...

Ancient Egyptian and Greek pharmacopoeias reveal frequent use of different drugs, somniferous or narcotic, which contain poisonous elements. Among the toxic plants enumerated by Dioscorides, we find poppy and others. Egyptians were fond of taking these narcotic or euphoric substances attributed to nepenthes, but it is difficult to prove whether ancient people were aware of modern aspects of add...

Acetyl coenzyme A:salutaridinol-7-O-acetyltransferase, a highly substrate-specific enzyme, has been purified nearly 3,000-fold to homogeneity from Papaver somniferum plant cell suspension cultures. Purification was achieved by fractionated ammonium sulfate precipitation, dye-ligand affinity chromatography on matrex red A, gel filtration, ion exchange chromatography on Mono Q and a second dye-li...

Morphinan alkaloids are the most powerful narcotic analgesics currently used to treat moderate to severe and chronic pain. The feasibility of morphinan synthesis in recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae starting from the precursor (R,S)-norlaudanosoline was investigated. Chiral analysis of the reticuline produced by the expression of opium poppy methyltransferases showed strict enantioselectivit...

We have studied the cytotoxic nature of two groups of narcotic analgesics. Group 1 consists of the opioids, morphine, codeine, hydromorphone, thebaine, and etorphine. Group II contains but two phenylpiperidine-type narcotics, fentanyl and sufentanil. To measure cytotoxicity, three different bioassays were employed using an established line of human cells. Specifically, the effects of narcotic a...

Introduction of drugs (colloquially known as painkillers) used to relieve pain (achieve analgesia). Analgesic drugs act in various ways on the peripheral and central nervous systems; they include paracetamol (acetaminophen), the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as the salicylates, narcotic drugs such as morphine, synthetic drugs with narcotic properties such as tramadol, and v...

A previously unknown disease which causes severe vein thickening and inward leaf curl was observed in a number of opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) plants. The sequence analysis of full-length viral genome and associated betasatellite reveals the occurrence of Ageratum enation virus (AEV) and Ageratum leaf curl betasatellite (ALCB), respectively. Co-infiltration of cloned agroinfectious DNAs ...

Buprenorphine is a thebaine derivative used in the treatment of heroin and other opiate addictions. In this study, the selective probe reactions for each of the major hepatic cytochromes P450 (P450s) were used to evaluate the effect of buprenorphine and its main metabolite norbuprenorphine on the activity of these P450s. The index reactions used were CYP1A2 (phenacetin O-deethylation), CYP2A6 (...

BACKGROUND Buprenorphine, a synthetic molecule derived from thebaine, has been commercialized in France since 1987 as a substitute treatment for pharmacodependence on opiates. Hepatotoxicity is poorly documented, since only few cases of hepatic injury have been reported. METHODS We report seven cases of acute cytolytic hepatitis due to buprenorphine. All patients were former drug addicts by t...