Strychnos American

According to-Vellard, a Strychnos sp. similar to S. medeola is used by the Nambikwaras. Brasil, Campos and Kuhlmann have mentioned three S. American species of Strychnos, viz., S. diplinerva, S. off. albiflora Prog and S. brevifolia A.D.C., in which, using extracts of the roots in comparison with Tecuna curare, they have found curarising activity by pharmacological tests in rabbits. 

Curare is a generic term for various South American arrow poisons. Curare has been used for centuries by the Indians along the Amazon and Orinoco rivers for immobilizing and paralyzing wild animals used for food. Preparations of curare are derived from Strychnos species, which contain quaternary neuromuscular alkaloids like tubocurarine. Tubocurarine is a potent antagonist at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. 

Initially, neuromnscnlar jnnction blockers were isolated from curare, the extract of which is produced from South American plants Strychnos and Chondodendron. Today, synthetic compounds as well as tnbocnrarine, an alkaloid isolated from curare, are used as antidepolarizing or cnrare-like drags, which are called antidepolarizing or competitive blockers. 

Neuromuscular - mild stimulation to muscle paralysis, respiratory failure (curare), death Tobacco -South American -Strychnos family (curare) Blue green alga (anatonin A) Nicotine - blocks acetylcholine receptors Curare - used as a hunting poison, very potent receptor blocker... 

Source active agent derived from the bark of various subspecies of South American Strychnos and Chondrodendron. 

Quetin-Leclercq J, Angenot L and Bisset NG (1990) South American Strychnos species. Ethnobotany (except curare) and alkaloid screening. J Ethnophar-macol 28, 1-52. 

Curare or South American arrow poison varies in composition among Indian tribes. However, the bark of one or more species of Strychnos apparently is always used in its preparation. Strychnos castelnaei Weddell, S. toxifera Bentham, S. Crevauxii G. Planchon, and Chondodendron tomentosum Ruiz Pavon are commonly employed. 

Streptomyces distallicus the structure elucidation and synthesis have also been made by them.165 A wide variety of porphyrins which are derivatives of porphin (125 R = H) occur in nature and exert three biological functions (a) oxygen storage and transport, as in hemoglobin, (b) cellular respiration as in the cytochromes, and (c) photosynthesis, as in the chlorophylls for detailed discussion of structures and synthesis of naturally occurring porphyrins, see references.166 Recent developments in the chemistry of polypyrrolic compounds have been reviewed.167 Several naturally occurring indole alkaloids have dimeric structures of type B,168 an example of which is c-toxiferine-I, a calabash curare alkaloid found in South American species of Strychnos.169... 

Chemical/Pharmaceutical/Other Class Toxic alkaloid (o-tubocurare) found in South American woody vines including Strychnos toxifera, S. castelnaei, S. crevauxii, and Chondodendron tom-entosum... 

On the basis of structure the dimers can be clearly divided into two groups. The first is comprised of alkaloids with identical or very closely related components in which the same centres act as linkage positions. The Calycanthaceous and Calabash-curare-South American Strychnos alkaloids make up this group. The second group consists of dimeric bases in which the alkaloid components are of a different structural type (e.g. geissospermine, vinblastine, and tubulosine) or in which two similar halves are linked unsymmetrically through two different centres e.g. macralstonine). The bisindole alkaloids will be discussed in this order. ... 

Introduction and Interrelationships.—Calabash-curare is prepared from the bark of South American Strychnos of the family Loganiaceae. From the curare and the Strychnos species, along with a large number of monomeric indole alkaloids, fifteen structurally classified bisindole alkaloids have been isolated. Their structures are all based on one CjgN skeleton. Only the N h N h fdimetho-salts exhibit high curare-activity. 

All dimeric curare alkaloids are derived from the monomeric units Wieland-Gumlich aldehyde (32) and 18-desoxy-Wieland-Gumlich aldehyde (34) or their respective iV(j,)-metho-salts (33) and (35). The key substance for the synthesis of the dimeric calabash alkaloids is therefore Wieland-Gumlich aldehyde (32). Under the name caracurine VII it has been isolated from the South American Strychnos toxifera F. Schomb. and S. subcordata Spruce in the form of its V(j,)-metho-salt (= alkaloid 8 = hemitoxiferine = caracurine VII metho-salt). 

C-Curarine (54) is formed by oxidation of C-dihydrotoxiferine (46) under very mild conditions. The alkaloid has, however, repeatedly been isolated from South American Strychnos species under conditions which do not suggest that it is an artefact. The same applies to C-alkaloid E (51) formed from C-toxiferine (38). 

American poisonous mixture called curare. Curare is derived from certain members of the genus Strychnos, and contains a number of toxic alkaloids (strychnine being a famihar name for such an alkaloid). Thus, enzymes in glycolysis and the tricarboxylic cycle proper are of fundamental concern, for their blockage or inhibition could prove fatal. Inhibitors for enzymes involved in the carboxylic acid cycle are listed in Appendix B of Hoffman (1999). 

As has been indicated, Flaning s original interest was in lysozymes, as was Horey s. These turned out to be enzymes present in mucus that act against bacteria, as in the mucus secreted in the nose from the mucous membranes. A parallel discovery was that a vitamin A deficiency caused mucous secretions to cease in the intestine, which was then followed by an invasion of virulent bacteria into intestinal tissues (Macfarlane, 1985, p. 161). An item of peripheral interest is that curare, a poisonous mixture of alkaloids derived from plants of the South American genus Strychnos, acts against tetanus (Macfarlane, 1985, p. 163). 

Monachino. The American Species of Strychnos in Briuonia 4, 248-322 (1942), also suppl. no. 1-6. Alkaloids from calabash curare and bark of Strychnos spp. P. Karrer, J, Pharm. Pharmacol 8, 161-164 (1956) Schmid, Karrer, Hefv. Chim. Acta 29, 1853 (1946) 30, 1162 (1947) Marino-Bettolo. Fest-schrift Arthur Stoll (Birkhauser-Verlag. Basel 1957) pp 257-280. Review of history, chemistry, and use of arrow -poison curare McIntyre, Curare (Chicago, 1947) Bovet et al. 

The word Strychnos was first coined by the Greeks to term toxic Solanaceae species, then used by the Swedish botanist Linne to name dangerous and toxic plants with reference to two typical species, S. nux-vomica and S. colubrina. [1, 2], This toxic property originally stimulated intensive research on Strychnos species, leading to the successful isolation of strychnine (1) from Asian Strychnos and curare alkaloids from South-American Strychnos. For a long time, the tetanising or the curarizing activities dominated the research devoted to Strychnos. 

C-Mavacurine has been isolated in 0.1 % yield from the root bark of a sample of Strychnos nux-vomica L. obtained from Indo-China, thus providing a link between American and non-American Strychnos species. The aerial parts of the same sample furnished strychnine, brucine, and vomicine, but no quaternary alkaloids (4). 

Strychnos henningsii is a South African species and the isolation of diaboline and its derivatives therefrom established a direct chemical link between American and African species (see also p. 194). Diaboline and a diacetyl Wieland-Gumlich aldehyde have also been isolated from the bark of the South American species S. chlorantha Prog. (12). The latter was identified by color reactions, chromatography, and mass spectrum (molecular formula C23H26N2O4), but insufficient material was available for further work. 

On the other hand, and as everyone knows, there are any number of plants that are highly toxic, even deadly. Every savvy North American hiker knows to stay away from poison ivy Toxicodendron spp.) when walking in the woods. The death sentence imposed on Socrates by an Athenian jury 2,400 years ago was carried out with a fatal dose of poison hemlock Conium maculatum). The poison curare, a blend of several equatorial rain forest plants (e.g., species of Chondrodendron, Curarea and Strychnos) is used by some South American hunter cultures to make their arrows more deadly (Schultes and Raffauf 1990). And in... 

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was the first to report that Strychnos toxifera Isa source of curare. Information about a South American vine, Chondro-dendron tomentosum, as another source had come from Hippolyto Ruiz and Joseph Pavonin 1794. 

Alkaloid Composition of Central and South American Strychnos Species... 

The many supplements to the monographs on American Loganiaceae (Strychnos) (99) and Menispermaceae (139) by Krukoff and his collaborators can be traced through the final paper in each series—(221) and (235), respectively. 

Leeuwenberg (216) divides Strychnos into twelve sections, and the American species belong to three of them Strychnos, Rouhamon (Aublet) Progel, and Breviflorae Progel. KrukofF and Barneby (105) split this last section into two subsections Breviflorae and Eriospermae Krukoff et Barneby, based primarily on supposed differences in the nature of the testa of the seeds the distinction is not universally accepted and the point requires further study. 

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