Rubiaceae family Cinchona

The cinchona tree belongs to the Rubiaceae family and is a native of the eastern slope of the Andes but has been largely planted in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Myanmar, with the result of improving the quinine-yielding value of many species by cultivation. There are two official species ... 

The genus Cinchona (Rubiaceae) comprises about 25 species of tall, evergreen trees that grow in South America. The bark of these trees accumulates qumohue alkaloids that are, like camptotheciu, derived from tryptophan and secologaniu. Cinchona alkaloids are also found in the genus Remijia of the Rubiaceae family. 

The two Cinchona alkaloid selectors will be used to really get into a particular chiral recognition mechanism. Quinine is a natural alkaloid extracted from the bark of the South American Cinchona tree of the Rubiaceae family and used as an anti malaria drug (Fig. 6). Its 8 and 9 positions are, respectively, substituted in the S and R configuration. By chance, quinidine is the mirror image form of quinine, also found in the Cinchona bark with the 8R and 9S configuration. These two alkaloid enantiomers... 

In modem medicine, the medicinal plant-derived products are increasingly being sought after as pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals for the treatment of several ailments due to their efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Rubiaceae family, consisting of 13,200 species, is of special interest as they contain economically and medicinally important members [1]. Coffee from Cojfea spp. is considered as second most economically precious commodity after oil worldwide. Furthermore, Rubiaceae family is also often regarded as coffee family. Quinine is the first and most effective antimalarial which is also used as antipyretic and analgesic and antiinflammatory agent, discovered from Cinchona spp. provides evidence for the cmcial role of Rubiaceae family members in the medicinal field [2]. Yohimbe is an aphrodisiac derived from Pausinystalia yohimbe available as prescribed medicine and recently received an exploration as remedy for type 2 diabetes [3]. 

The genera in the family of Rubiaceae (Table 1) include cinchona and coffee. 

Plants belonging to the genus Cinchona of the family Rubiaceae are not indigenous to Sri Lanka. Cinchona ledgeriana Moens. was introduced into Sri Lanka with the sole intention of exporting its bark (26,27) to extract the antimalarial quinoline alkaloid quinine (9) and its D-isomer, quinidine,... 

Quinine is an alkaloid obtained from the bark of Cinchona officinalis Linne (C. ledgeriana Moens) belonging to the family Rubiaceae or other species of Cinchona. 

Similar methods have been used in syntheses (219, 230-232) from rubatoxine and its 6 -methoxy derivative (c/. Section IV, 3) of a large munber of derivatives of ruban (CXCIII) [named (146) from the plant family Rubiaceae, in members of which the cinchona alkaloids occur]. Thus, all four of the optically active 9-rubanols (CXCIV, R = H), as well as the corresponding 6 -methoxy derivatives (CXCIV, R OCHi) have been prepared. 

A number of terpenoid indole alkaloids have pharmaceutical interest. These alkaloids are isolated from plants belonging to the families Apocy-naceae, Loganiaceae, and Rubiaceae. For the production of alkaloids by means of plant cell cultures, plants of the latter two families have proved to be rather recalcitrant (e.g., see Cinchona alkaloids). On the other hand, it has been reported by Pawelka and Stockigt that all apocynaceous cell suspensions they studied did produce terpenoid indole alkaloids 588). Here we confine ourselves to alkaloids which have direct commercial interest the production of new, potentially interesting, compounds is not reviewed here. For this we refer the reader to reviews by Balsevich (589), van der Heijden et al. (tribe Tabernaemontaneae) (590), and Omar (Rhazya stricta) (591). 

Source Red cinchona. Cinchona officinalis L., C.pubescensM. Vahl. (syn. C. succimbra Pavon ex Klotzsch) and its hybrids Yellow cinchona. Cinchona calisaya Weddell, C. ledgeriana Moens ex Tritnen, and their hybrids with other Cinchona species (Family Rubiaceae). 

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