Alexa leiopetala

This compound exhibits the same relationship to (3-D-fructofuranose as 1-deoxy-nojirimcin does to D-glucopyranose. In 1979, a polyhydroxyindolizidine alkaloid was isolated from the poisonous fruit of Castanospermum australe, a handsome Australian indigenous tree, and coined castanospermine (8) after its source.28 A compound subsequently isolated from the seeds of this plant was the pyrrolizidine australine (9),29 also found in Alexa leiopetala,30 along with other compounds. These discoveries increasingly supported the hypothesis that imino sugars and their structural relatives might be a fairly common family of natural products, and their widespread... 

D. J. Watkin, Isolation from Alexa leiopetala and x-ray crystal structure of alexine, (1R,2R,3R,7S,8S)-3-hydroxymethyl-l,2,7-trihydroxypyrrolizidine [ (2R.3R,47 , 5S, >S)-2-hydroxymethyl-l-azabicyclo... 

Castanospermine, isolated from the seeds of Castanospermum australe and from dried pods of Alexa leiopetala [6], is another polyhydroxylated indolizidine v th a potent, competitive and reversible inhibitory effect on several glycosidases. For this reason it has been largely used as a glycosidase identifier and as an auxiliary in the purification of glycosidases and mannosidases [120-125]. Castanospermine was also used in two other... 

Alexine [(li ,2A,3A,75, 85 )-3-hydroxymethyl-l,2,7-txihydroxypyrrolizidine, 1] has been isolated from Alexa leiopetala Similar alkaloids 3,7a-di-ep/-alexine (3-epi-australine, 2)/ (+)-australine (7a-ep/-alexine, 5)/ l-ep/-australine (l,7a-di-ep/-alexine,... 

Castanospermines (+)-Castanospermine [(lS,65, 7i, 87 ,8a7 )-l,6,7,8-tetrah-ydroxyindolizidine, 1] was isolated from the seeds of the Australian legume Cas-tanospermum australe and the dried pod of Alexa leiopetala The analogues (+)-... 

P-homonojirimycin), 155 Alexa leiopetala (alexine), 240 Alexa leiopetala (castanospermine),... 

This new group of 3-hydroxymethyl-substituted pyrrolizidines has been found since the first compound, Alexine 1 was isolated from pods of Alexa leiopetala (Leguminosae) in 1988 (Fig. 1) [3]. 

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