title: Seasonal accumulation of major alkaloids in organs of pharmaceutical crop Narcissus Carlton.
abstract: Narcissus pseudonarcissus (L.) cv. Carlton is being cultivated as a main source of galanthamine from the bulbs. After galanthamine, haemanthamine and narciclasine are the next most abundant alkaloids in this cultivar. Both these compounds are promising chemical scaffolds for potential anticancer drugs. For further research and drug development, a reliable supply of these compounds will be needed. In this study a field experiment was conducted to investigate the levels of galanthamine, haemanthamine and narciclasine in plants of N. pseudonarcissus cv. Carlton. In a field experiment alkaloids in the bulbs, leaves and roots were analyzed by quantitative (1)H NMR to monitor the variations during the growing season. Major primary and secondary metabolites were identified in the various plant parts. Multivariate data analysis was performed on the (1)H NMR spectra to investigate how metabolites changed in the plant organs over time. The results show that the leaves have relatively high concentrations of the alkaloids before flowering. The bulbs had lower concentrations of the compounds of interest but would have a higher total yield of alkaloids due to bigger biomass. Narcissus pseudonarcissus cv. Carlton represents a good source of galanthamine, and can potentially be a source of the other major alkaloids depending on choice of organ and harvest time.
authors: Natural Products Laboratory, Institute of Biology Leiden, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9502, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. a.lubbe@chem.leidenuniv.nl
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Lubbe
authors: Henk
authors: H
authors: Gude
authors: Robert
authors: R
authors: Verpoorte
authors: Young Hae
authors: YH
authors: Choi
mesh_terms: D000470:Alkaloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D047151:Amaryllidaceae Alkaloids / Q000737:chemistry; D055808:Drug Discovery; D005702:Galantamine / Q000737:chemistry; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D015394:Molecular Structure; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D031427:Narcissus / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D010617:Phenanthridines / Q000737:chemistry; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000737:chemistry; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000737:chemistry; D012621:Seasons; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D000470:Alkaloids; D047151:Amaryllidaceae Alkaloids; D010617:Phenanthridines; D005702:Galantamine; C010753:narciclasine; C462104:hemanthamine