Narcissus and Daffodil

Table 6.4 Continued
Alkaloid Activity References
5 2-O-acetylpseudolycorine
* Moderately active against HepG2
hepatoma
* Moderately active against Ehrlich
ascites tumour cells
* Inhibitor of HeLa cell growth
* Antiviral. Active against Herpes
simplex type 1
* Active against neurotropic RNA
viruses
* Does not inhibit the activity of
reverse transcriptase
* Cytotoxic against Molt 4 lymphoid
and LMTK fibroblastic cell lines
* Weak cytotoxic against HepG2
hepatoma
58 tazettine * Weak hypotensive
* Exhibits mild activity against
certain tumour cell lines
* Active against the Co12 cell line
* Weak cytotoxic against
fibroblastic LMTK cell lines
* The stereochemical
rearrangement from pretazettine
to tazettine inactivates the
biological activity of pretazettine
39 vittatine * Weak analgesic in mice
* Increases the analgesic effect of
morphine
* Tachycardic in dogs
Alkaloids of Narcissus 195
Weniger et al., 1995
Antoun et al., 1993
CHCD, 1996
Codina et al., 1992b
Furusawa et al., 1976b
Furusawa et al., 1980
Rigby et al., 1998
Weniger et al., 1995
CHCD, 1996
Ghosal et al., 1985b
Galanthamine, originally isolated from Galanthus nivalis in the 1940s, is a longacting,
selective, reversible and competitive inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase. This
enzyme is responsible for the degradation of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular
junction, in peripheral and central cholinergic synapses and in parasympathetic
target organs (Fulton and Benfield, 1996; Wilcock and Wilkinson, 1997). Galanthamine
hydrobromide was first used by Bulgarian and Russian researchers in the
1950s and has been exploited for a variety of clinical purposes in the past. It has been
used clinically for postsurgery reversal of tubocurarine-induced muscle relaxation
and for treating post-polio paralysis, myasthenia gravis and other neuromuscular
diseases, as well as traumatic brain injuries (Bores and Kosley, 1996; Radicheva
et al., 1996). Besides this, galanthamine acts as a mild analeptic, shows analgesic
power as strong as morphine, and, applied in eye drops, reduces the intraocular
pressure. As early as 1972, Soviet research had demonstrated that galanthamine
could reverse scopolamine-induced amnesia in mice, a finding that was demonstrated
in man four years later. However, this did not lead to the application of
this compound in Alzheimer’s disease until 1986, long after the widely accepted
cholinergic hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease had been first postulated (Allain
et al., 1997). While the original acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, physostigmine and