The isocarbostyril alkaloid narciclasine, also known as lycoricidinol, was discovered in Narcissus species (Amaryllidaceae) in 1967. A few years later, the 60S subunit of ribosomes, and thus protein biosynthesis, were shown to be directly targeted by narciclasine. Due to its selective and highly potent cytotoxic action on cancer cells, narciclasine was intensively investigated as an antitumor c...

Lycorine, which is the most abundant alkaloid isolated from the Amaryllidaceae family of plants, reportedly exhibits promising anticancer activities. Herein, a series of novel lycorine derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro inhibitory activities against seven different cancer cell lines, including A549, HCT116, SK-OV-3, NCI-H460, K562, MCF-7 and HL-60. The results indicat...

Lycorine is an alkaloid isolated from the bulb of the Amaryllidaceae Lycoris. Here, we report that treatment with lycorine resulted in survival inhibition and apoptosis induction in human leukemia cell lines. Lycorine induced apoptosis in human leukemia cells via intrinsic mitochondria pathway and caused a rapid-turnover of protein level of Mcl-1 which occurred before caspases activation. Furth...

Abstract The Narcissus pseudonarcissus cv. Carlton contains Amaryllidaceae alkaloids namely galanthamine, lycorine, homolycorine, narciclasine, which are noted for their pharmaceutical properties such as the treatment of early to mid-stage Alzheimer's diseases, cancer, tumor etc. Alkaloid biosynthesis using plant in vitro systems has been considered a tool drug discovery and pathways starting b...

The monophyletic Eurasian clade of Amaryllidaceae was analyzed using plastid ndhF and rDNA ITS sequences for 33 and 29 taxa, respectively; all genera were represented by at least one species. Both maximum parsimony and Bayesian analysis were used on each data set and the combined data. Both sequence matrices resolve the Central and East Asian tribe Lycorideae as sister to the Mediterranean-cent...