Project @ a Glance

• An alkaloid is, strictly speaking, a naturally occurring amine produced by a plant, but amines produced by animals and fungi are also called alkaloids.
• Types of Alkoloids are Terpenoid Alkaloids, Benzylisoquinoline Alkaloids, Tropane Alkaloids and Nicotine, Purine Alkaloids. Alkaloids are subclassified on the basis of the chemical type of their nitrogen containing ring. Alkaloids are formed as metabolic by-products. However, their characteristic bitter taste and accompanying toxicity generally help to repel insects and herbivores. Complicated ecological interrelationships have developed between several insects and alkaloids. For example, the consumption of specific pyrrolizidine alkaloids is necessary for some danoid butterflies to synthesize their pheromones.
• Alkaloids are very common plant metabolites and are grouped according to typical structural characteristics, resulting in large families of molecules as for example tropane alkaloids and PAs. PAs, formerly also called Senecio alkaloids, are widely distributed among plant species, and it is assumed that more than 6000 plant species belonging to the families of Boraginaceae, Compositae (Asteraceae) and Leguminosae (Fabaceae) contain PAs at different levels and in different patterns.

Properties and Functions

• The free bases of alkaloids are compounds having basic properties: their aqueous or aqueous-alcoholic solutions are alkaline to litmus. The degree of basicity is expressed by the pKb and depends on the chemical nature of the alkaloid. The free bases are formed by treating the salt with one of various alkalizing agents such as NaOH, Ca(OH)2, Na2CO3, NH3, or lower amines, depending on the pKa of an ammonium salt. Generally, the pH must be adjusted at least one pH unit above the pKa of a protonated form.
• Morphine, discovered in 1817, is the principal alkaloid of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), a plant species that has been cultivated all over the world for more than 2,000 years. Morphine is obtained from opium, the dried latex of the unripe capsules, where it is found largely as the salt of meconic acid. Morphine has also been isolated as a minor alkaloid from the closely related species Papaver setigerum and Papaver decaisnei.
• The pure alkaloids are mostly crystalline solids; some are gums or amorphous solids. Some are only slightly soluble in water, but all dissolve when neutralized with acid. They occur in the plants partly as N-oxides, which are water soluble. The alkaloids are fairly stable, but are subject to hydrolysis in alkaline solution and to enzymatic decomposition. The latter occurs in some plant species during wilting and drying. The stability of the alkaloids when the plants are cooked is not known.

Extraction Process

• The alkaloid extracts from Lupinus spp., obtained by conventional methods (maceration/sonication- solid phase extraction; maceration/ sonication - liquid-liquid extraction) and SFE (supercritical fluid extraction) using CO2 and modified CO2 (CO2/MeOH, CO2/EtOH, CO2/iPrOH and CO2/H2O) were analysed by HRGC-FID (high resolution gas chromatography - flame ionization detector) and HRGC-MS (high resolution gas chromatography - mass spectrometry).
• A method of extraction of natural products has been developed. Compared with existing methods, the new technique is rapid, more efficient and consumes less solvent. Extraction of alkaloids from natural products such as Hyoscyamus muticus, Datura stramonium and Ruta graveolens consists of the use of a sonicated solution containing a surfactant as extracting agent.

Applications

• Alkaloids are mainly used in and as Pharmaceuticals, Stimulants, Narcotics, Poisons.
• Plants containing Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids are likely to grow as weeds among staple food crops and pastures, especially following drought, and consumption of such crops can cause large scale outbreaks of toxic disease in both man and farm animals. Little is known about the effects on wildlife but, in one report, the death of deer was ascribed to their grazing on toxic plants.

Market  and Report

• The total pharmaceutical market in the EU amounted to € 144 billion in 2005, of which € 23.4 was non-prescription. Some 42% of the sales of the top 25 selling drugs worldwide are either based on natural ingredients, or derived from natural ingredients.
• The value of EU imports of medicinal plants stabilised at € 375 million, while the value of EU imports of medicinal and vegetable saps & extracts (€ 101 million), and vegetable alkaloids (€ 521 million) decreased. EU import prices for vegetable alkaloids, vegetable saps
  and extracts and plant material have been decreasing; EU prices for natural ingredients for pharmaceuticals are now among the world´s lowest. Tasmanian Alkaloids exports 95% of its production so a global view is essential. The big markets in North America and Europe depend on Tasmania for regular reliable supplies 
• The leading developing country suppliers of medicinal & aromatic plants to the EU were China, India, Nigeria, Kenya, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Uzbekistan and South Africa. About 75% of EU imports from developing countries of medicinal and vegetable saps and extracts originated in China and Madagascar. 

Order the CD ROM Today