Aconite roots (roots or root tubers of the Aconitum species) are eaten as root vegetables and used to prepare herbal soups and meals, mainly for their purported health benefits. Aconite roots contain aconitine and other Aconitum alkaloids, which are well known cardiotoxins and neurotoxins. To better understand why Aconitum alkaloid poisoning related to the culinary uses of aconite roots can occ...

Metabolic syndrome and related disorders are increasingly prevalent in contemporary society, and thus pose the need for potent agents to control lipid accumulation in the body. This study indicates that Caenorhabditis elegans was effective in screening for potent lipid metabolism modulators with berberine as a model compound. Among the various isoquinoline alkaloids tested, sanguinarine, a benz...

The ability of a class of C-20' modified vinca alkaloid congeners to induce tubulin spiral formation was investigated relative to their ability to inhibit microtubule assembly, their cytotoxicity against a leukemic cell line, L1210, and their measured and calculated partition coefficients. These studies were prompted by the observation that the energetics of vinca alkaloid-induced tubulin spira...

Lys-derived alkaloids, including piperidine, quinolizidine, indolizidine, and lycopodium alkaloids, are widely distributed throughout the plant kingdom. Several of these alkaloids have beneficial properties for humans and have been used in medicine. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis of these alkaloids are not well understood. In the present article, we discuss recent...

Broiler chickens reared under heat stress (HS) conditions have decreased growth performance and show metabolic immunologic alterations. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of supplementation with a standardized blend plant-derived isoquinoline alkaloids (IQ) on performance, protein catabolism, intestinal barrier function, inflammatory status HS-treated chickens. Three hundred sixty 0-day-ol...

1 ©2003 International Medical Press 0956-3202/02/$17.00 Influenza continues to be a major cause of high morbidity and significant mortality both in humans and domestic animals. Despite the success in development of anti-influenza drugs (Colacino et al., 2000), a need continues to exist for effective therapies for influenza virus infection. The extracts and products of plant origin provide an al...

Thalictrum is a well recognised genus of medicinal plants. It is widely distributed in temperate and tropical habitats of India. Alkaloid isomers from Thalictrum are reported to exhibit various pharmacological activities like antiamebic, antimicrobial, antitumour and antiviral. Thalictrum reniforme Wallich and Thalictrum neurocarpum Royale are very less studied species of the genera. In present...

Alkaloids comprise one of the largest groups of plant secondary metabolites. Many of them exhibit strong biological activities, and, in most cases, they are accumulated in the central vacuole of alkaloid-producing plants after synthesis. However, the mechanisms involved in alkaloid transport across the tonoplast are only poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed the vacuolar transport mecha...

Two analytical platforms, gas chromatography (GC) coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight (QTOF) mass spectrometry (MS) and reversed-phase ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to diode array (DAD) and QTOF detection, were applied in order to study the alkaloid profile of Fumaria capreolata. The use of these mass analyzers enabled tentatively identifying the alkaloids by matc...

Phellodendrine is a Phellodendri Cortex-derived isoquinoline alkaloids, has been shown to have various activities, especially hypoglycemic effect in mice, predicting its medicinal value on diabetes mellitus. To further understand the pharmacological of phellodendrine mellitus, network techniques used elaborate involved mechanisms. 84 common target molecules were screened, based chemical structu...