Objectives: Belonging to Papaveraceae family, Glaucium vitellinum is one of the Persian endemic plants which has not been investigated biologically. The present paper focused on the assessment of the antibacterial and antifungal activities of the total methanol extract and alkaloid sub-fraction of the flowering aerial parts of G. vitellinum. Materials and Methods: The antibacterial and antifung...

Seeds of Gunja (Abrus precatorius Linn) are reported to be poisonous due to the presence of a toxic protein 'abrin and an alkaloid hypaphorine. Te seeds after subjecting to the process of shodhana, find use in a number of Ayurvedic preparations. HPLC studies revealed that the process of shodhana resulted in depletion of more toxic alkaloid hypaphorine and protein abrin.

The first total synthesis of polycyclic Stemona alkaloid maistemonine has been achieved. The efficient approach features a stereoselective intramolecular Schmidt reaction, a ketone-ester condensation, and a Reformatsky reaction. Additionally, another Stemona alkaloid stemonamide was divergently synthesized from a common intermediate.

Motivation exists to develop tobacco cultivars with reduced nicotine content for the purpose of facilitating compliance with expected tobacco product regulations that could mandate the lowering of nicotine levels per se, or the reduction of carcinogenic alkaloid-derived tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNAs). A berberine bridge enzyme-like (BBL) gene family was recently characterized for N. taba...

California poppy (Eschscholzia californica Cham.) cell cultures produce several benzophenanthridine alkaloids, such as sanguinarine, chelirubine, and macarpine, with potent pharmacological activity. Antisense constructs of genes encoding two enzymes involved in benzophenanthridine alkaloid biosynthesis, the berberine bridge enzyme (BBE) and N-methylcoclaurine 3'-hydroxylase (CYP80B1), were intr...

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of Nelumbinis Plumula total alkaloid (NPA) and its main alkaloid components on oxidative stress induced by tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHP) in the human hepatocellular HepG2 cell line. According to HPLC analysis, several major alkaloid compounds such as liensinine, isoliensinine and neferine were present in NPA. The cytotoxic effects in 0.55 mM...

Novel cinchona alkaloid-derived bifunctional organocatalysts containing sulfonamide groups were utilized to promote Michael addition of bicyclic alpha-substituted beta-ketoesters to nitroolefins. The desired Michael adducts with all-carbon quaternary centers were constructed in high yield and with excellent enantioselectivity, demonstrating the great potential of cinchona alkaloid-derived sulfo...

The bitter and sweet forms of a plant species differing with alkaloid contents may provide a model system for investigation of alkaloid biosynthesis at a molecular level. The pattern and concentration of quinolizidine alkaloids were determined by capillary GC-MS in bitter and sweet plants of Lupinus angustifolius. Bitter plant contained lupanine, 13alpha-hydroxylupanine, angustifoline, alpha-is...

Since the diamine putrescine can be metabolized into the pyrrolidine ring of tobacco alkaloids as well as into the higher polyamines, we have investigated the quantitative relationship between putrescine and these metabolites in tobacco callus cultured in vitro. We measured levels of free and conjugated putrescine and spermidine, and pyrrolidine alkaloids, as well as activities of the putresci...

BACKGROUND Species of Cephalotaxus (the plum yews) produce nematotoxic compounds of unknown identity. Consequently, bioassay-guided fractionation was employed to identify the compound(s) in Cephalotaxus fortunei twigs and leaves with activity against plant-parasitic nematodes. RESULTS A crude alkaloid extract, particularly drupacine, was responsible for much of the nematotoxicity. The ED50 of...