[14C]Cadaverine was applied to leaves of Lupinus polyphyllus, L. albus, L. angustifolius, L. perennis, L. mutabilis, L. pubescens, and L. hartwegii and it was preferentially incorporated into lupanine. In Lupinus arboreus sparteine was the main labelled alkaloid, in L. hispanicus it was lupinine. A pulse chase experiment with L. angustifolius and L. arboreus showed that the incorporation of cad...

Ergot alkaloids are indole-derived mycotoxins that are important in agriculture and medicine. Ergot alkaloids are produced by a few representatives of two distantly related fungal lineages, the Clavicipitaceae and the Trichocomaceae. Comparison of the ergot alkaloid gene clusters from these two lineages revealed differences in the relative positions and orientations of several genes. The questi...

Male salt marsh moths, Estigmene acrea (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae), possess inflatable androconial organs called coremata. Prior to mating males form aggregations and inflate their coremata en masse. The communal display attracts additional males and females for the purpose of mating. The coremata are known to carry the plant-derived dihydropyrrolizine, hydroxydanaidal. This pheromonal substance i...

Sinomenine is an alkaloid contained in the root of Sinomenium acutum Rehd. et Wilson (Fam. Menishermaceae), growing wild in southern Japan, and has long been used as a home remedy for neuralgia and rheumatism. It has a chemical structure similar to that of morphine, as shown left (1). Ishiwari (2, 3), who first isolated this alkaloid and studied its pharmacological actions, found that sinomenin...

The effect of salinity on growth, photosynthetic pigment content, and alkaloid secondary metabolite accumulation were studied in an economically important medicinal plant, Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don., under pot culture conditions. Plants were treated with different concentrations of NaCl, (e.g. 50 and 100 mM) 30, 45, 60, and 75 days after sowing (DAS). The plants were uprooted randomly 90 ...

The value of ephedrine as a therapeutic agent has been appreciated for some years but little attention has been paid to its dextrorotatory isomer pseudo-ephedrine. This latter alkaloid occurs in large quantities in the Indian species of ephedra, most of the specimens containing a proportion of 50 per cent, of the total alkaloid content. Lieut.-Col. R. N. Chopra, i-M.s., and his collaborators of...

Brucine is the predominant alkaloid present in the bark of the tree Strychnos nux vomica and is a weaker alkaloid when compared to strychnine. However, its toxicological property is akin to strychnine. We report a rare case of brucine poisoning complicated by acute renal failure and rhabdomyolysis. A 24-year-old male presented with a history of consumption of a decoction made from the bark of t...

In previous works we showed that oral administration of caulerpine, a bisindole alkaloid isolated from algae of the genus Caulerpa, produced antinociception when assessed in chemical and thermal models of nociception. In this study, we evaluated the possible mechanism of action of this alkaloid in mice, using the writhing test. The antinociceptive effect of caulerpine was not affected by intrap...

Development of novel synthetic methodologies and their application to synthesis of natural products are described. The first topic is about an extension of the scope of our indole synthesis by radical cyclization of o-alkenylphenyl isocyanides. By utilizing this methodology and nitrogenzenesulfonamide chemistry, an efficient total synthesis of hexacyclic aspidosperma indole alkaloid, aspidophyt...

Putrescine N-methyltransferase (PMT) is the first alkaloid-specific enzyme for nicotine and tropane alkaloid formation. The pmt gene from Nicotiana tabacum was fused to the CaMV 35S promoter and integrated into the Atropa belladonna genome. Transgenic plants and derived root cultures were analysed for gene expression and for levels of alkaloids and their precursors. Scopolamine, hyoscyamine, tr...