Enzymes That Catalyze Alkaloid Transformations

Microorganisms, plants, and mammalian systems all contain enzymes capable of catalyzing chemical transformations with alkaloid substrates. Interesting and useful enzyme reactions that may occur with alkaloids include oxidations, reduc-... 

The above sequence mimics the proposed biosynthesis of Ervatamia alkaloids and in this context Thai and Mansuy (190) set out to determine whether an enzyme preparation would be able to promote the same transformation. By incubation of dregamine hydrochloride with a suspension of liver microsomes from a rat pretreated with phenobarbital (as a good inducer of P-450 cytochromes) in the presence of NADPH and 02, 20-epiervatamine (45) was formed together with the major metabolite Nl -demethyldregamine. It is well known that microsomal reaction on tertiary amines results in Af-oxide formation or N-deal-kylation. Thus it is likely that 45 was derived either from a rearrangement of dregamine JV4-oxide, catalyzed by the iron cytochrome P-450 or from one-electron oxidation of 30. 

Enzymatic transformations of alkaloids by peroxidases most probably occur by single-step oxidations catalyzed by the HRP-I and HRP-II forms of the enzyme. The catalysis of one-electron oxidations of compounds containing aromatic hydrocarbon, hydrazine, phenol, hydroxamic acid, and amine functional groups has been recently reviewed (45, 58, 82). A brief summary of those HRP reactions that involve functional groups most commonly occurring in alkaloids is presented below. 

Tropinone is stereospecifically reduced to yield both tropine (3a-hydroxytropine), which led to the formation of tropane alkaloids, and pseudotropine (3p-hydroxytropine), the precursor of calystegines. These stereospecific reductions are catalyzed by two different tropinone reductases, tropinone reductase I and II (TRI and TRII). Both enzymes have been isolated from many Solanaceous species. Thus, TR I and TR II were isolated from D. innoxia roots and the crude extract favoured the production of pseudotropine over tropine [151]. Also, from transformed root cultures of D. stramonium two different tropinone reductases were obtained. In this species, TRI showed about 5-fold larger activity than TRII, and TRI displayed a pronounced pH-dependency, while TRII was more tolerant to different pH values [152]. Moreover, two tropinone reductases were also isolated from H. niger root cultures. TRI-reduction was reversible, whereas TRII-reduction was essentially irreversible [153]. In subsequent studies it was found that the accumulation of both TRs was the highest in the lateral roots of H. niger throughout development, with different cell-specific patterns [154]. 

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