Several cDNAs of enzymes catalyzing biosynthetic pathways of plant-derived alkaloids have recently been heterologously expressed, and the production of appropriate enzymes from ajmaline and tropane alkaloid biosynthesis in bacteria allows their crystallization. This review describes the architecture of these enzymes with and without their ligands.

The purpose of the present study was to determine the tropane alkaloid content of four Hyoscyamus species from Iran, i.e. H. pusillus L., H. niger L., H. reticulatus L. and H. kurdicus Bornm. Determination of alkaloids was performed by the HPLC method. Samples were extracted with chloroform-methanol-25% ammonium hydroxide 15:5:1 (V/V/V). HPLC separation was performed on Eurospher C18 reversed p...

The pharmacologically important tropane alkaloids have a scattered distribution among angiosperm families, like many other groups of secondary metabolites. To determine whether tropane alkaloids have evolved repeatedly in different lineages or arise from an ancestral pathway that has been lost in most lines, we investigated the tropinone-reduction step of their biosynthesis. In species of the S...

Scopolamine is an alkaloid widely used in medicine for its anticholinergic activity. The aim of this review is to show that metabolic engineering techniques constitute a suitable tool to improve the production of tropane alkaloids, focusing in particular on scopolamine. We present an overview of results obtained by various research groups, including our own, who have studied the overexpression ...

Latua pubiflora (Griseb) Phil. Is a native shrub of the Solanaceae family that grows freely in southern Chile and is employed among Mapuche aboriginals to induce sedative effects and hallucinations in religious or medicine rituals since prehispanic times. In this work, the pentobarbital-induced sleeping test and the elevated plus maze test were employed to test the behavioral effects of extract...

The tropane and granatane alkaloids belong to the larger pyrroline and piperidine classes of plant alkaloids, respectively. Their core structures share common moieties and their scattered distribution among angiosperms suggest that their biosynthesis may share common ancestry in some orders, while they may be independently derived in others. Tropane and granatane alkaloid diversity arises from ...

Brugmansia candida (Solanaceae) is a native tree distributed across South-American and produces the pharmacologicallyimportant group of tropane alkaloids including scopolamine. This biocompound is synthesised from hyoscyamine by action of Hyoscyamine 6-β hydroxylase (H6H, EC 1.14.11.11) at the end of the tropane alkaloid pathway. Here are reported the tissue and organ-specific expression of h6h...

The strict application of IUPAC rules for the numbering of tropane alkaloids is not always applied by authors and there is hence a lot of confusion in the literature. In most cases, the notation of 3, 6/7-disubstituted derivatives has been chosen arbitrarily, based on NMR and MS data, without taking into account the absolute configuration of these two carbons. This paper discusses the problem a...

Hyoscyamine (atropine) and scopolamine are the predominant tropane alkaloids in the Datura genus, occurring in all plant organs. The assessment of the alkaloid content of various plant parts is essential from the viewpoint of medical use, but also as a potential risk of toxicity for humans and animals. Therefore, a reliable method for the determination of tropane alkaloid content is of high imp...