Alkaloids of plants

The thought that transmethylation of noradrenaline may be an initial step in its deactivation in the body makes one wonder whether further transmethylation of adrenaline is also not a common biological process. As a result of studies of the various alkaloids of plants of the Ephedra species, it was noted that not only Z-ephedrine and its stereoisomer d-pseudoephedrine are present but also that -norephedrine, d-norpseudoephedrine, l-methylephedrine, and d-methylpseudoephedrine (8) are present. The quaternary tri-methylammonium compounds corresponding to these were not reported but very... 

Mayfoline and TV1 -acetyl-TV1 -deoxymayfoline were isolated from the arial parts of Maytenus buxifolia. Mayfoline (132) is the main alkaloid of plants grown in the district of Matanzas (Cuba), whereas TV -acetyl-iV -desoxymay-foline (133) is the main base of those plants grown in the district of Oriente, Santiago de Cuba (108,109) (see structure 117). 

The isolation of atropine, scopolamine, and cocaine occurred long before the development of modern analytical techniques. Gas chromatography was the first instrumental technique available in the field of separation science and thus it is not surprising that these alkaloids were firstly analyzed by GC despite their low volatility. With the advent of capillary columns and the proliferation of various sample introduction and detection methods, GC has evolved as the dominant analytical technique for screening, identification, and quantitation of tropane alkaloids of plant origin as well as in biological fluids. The state-of-the-art of GC analysis of tropane alkaloids has been the subject of two comprehensive reviews [45,58]. We shall therefore mainly focus on publications which have appeared since 2002. 

Thus, the more plausible hypothesis is that alkaloids of plants, microorganisms, and animals, like other allelochemicals, serve as defense compounds. This idea is intuitively straightforward, because many alkaloids are known as strong poisons for animals and Homo sapiens. 

The Table summarizes recent isolation and structural elucidation work on quinoline and furoquinoline alkaloids of plant origin. The structure of folisine (4) from Haplophyllum foliosum was confirmed by synthesis. Heating the methiodide of dubinidine (11) yielded folisine. The alkaloid distribution in H. suaveolens was extensively examined in leaf, stem, fruit with seeds, and root kokusaginine (1 R = = OMe, R = H) was found to be the major component in all... 

Reticuline (Fig. 33), well known for about half a century now as an alkaloid of plant but not mushroom origin and as a biosynthetic precursor to several alkaloids of great importance, was recently claimed (449) to be... 

For identification of alkaloids of plant obtained by vegetative micro propagation, the LC-MS/MS quadropole with electrospray ionization method was very suitable. In plant cultivated on field, 52 alkaloids (lobeline and related piperidine alkaloids) were found and identified. Of them, as main component, was identified the 8-ethyl-lO-phenyl-lobelienonol isomer of molecular ion [M + H]" of miz 288 (Fig. 11.29), [52]. 

---