Meteloidine is an

alkaloid Alkaloids are a class of basic BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Th ...

found in some ''

Brugmansia ''Brugmansia'' is a genus of seven species of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae. They are woody trees or shrubs, with pendulous flowers, and have no spines on their fruit. Their large, fragrant flowers give them their common n ...

'' and ''

Datura ''Datura'' is a genus of nine species of highly poisonous, vespertine-flowering plants belonging to the nightshade family Solanaceae. They are commonly known as thornapples or jimsonweeds, but are also known as devil's trumpets (not to be con ...

'' species. Its also found in ''

Erythroxylum australe ''Erythroxylum australe'' is a shrub or small tree endemic to northern Australia. The plant is known by a variety of names including Brigalow erythroxylon shrub and dogwood (unrelated to '' Cornus''). The plant grows in a wide variety of habita ...

'' and is said to be cocaine-like alkaloid.

Occurrence

The first report of the isolation from a natural source of meteloidine was in 1908 by

Frank Lee Pyman Frank Lee Pyman FRS (8 April 1882 – 1 January 1944) was an English academic and commercial research chemist. Pyman was born in Malvern, the eldest son of Frank Pyman and his wife Florence Lee, daughter of Henry Lee MP for Southampton. Pym ...

and

William Colebrook Reynolds William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conqu ...

from the flowering plant

Datura metel ''Datura metel'' is a shrub-like annual (zone 5–7) or short-lived, shrubby perennial (zone 8–10), commonly known in Europe as Indian thornapple, Hindu Datura, or metel and in the United States as devil's trumpet or angel's trumpet. ''Datura ...

along Angelate ester and ''Datura meteloides'' (now reclassified as ''

Datura innoxia ''Datura innoxia'' (often spelled ''inoxia''), known as pricklyburr, recurved thorn-apple, downy thorn-apple, Indian-apple, lovache, moonflower, nacazcul, toloatzin, toloaxihuitl, tolguache or toloache, is a species of flowering plant in the fami ...

''). Meteloidine is primarily found in

solanaceous The Solanaceae , or nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and orna ...

plants, and in one species of genus ''

Erythroxylum ''Erythroxylum'' (''Erythroxylon'') is a genus of tropical flowering plants in the family Erythroxylaceae. Many of the approximately 200 species contain the substance cocaine,Bieri S, Brachet A, Veuthey J, Christen P. Cocaine distribution in wild ...

''. It has been found in the leaves and

flowers A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

of '' Brugmansia candida'', and in the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

s of ''

Datura leichhardtii ''Datura leichhardtii'' is a species of thorn apple in the genus ''Datura''. In 1844, Ludwig Leichhardt is said to have discovered this species in Australia. Ferdinand von Mueller gave it the name ''Datura leichhardtii'' when he published his fir ...

'', ''

Brugmansia suaveolens ''Brugmansia suaveolens'', Brazil's white angel trumpet, also known as angel's tears and snowy angel's trumpet, is a species of flowering plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae, native to south eastern Brazil, but thought to be extinct in the ...

'', ''

Anthocercis littorea ''Anthocercis littorea'', also known as yellow tailflower, is a species of shrub in the family Solanaceae. It's native to Western Australia where it grows on coastal limestone and dunes as well as sandplains. Description It usually grows to ...

'' and ''

Anthocercis viscosa ''Anthocercis viscosa'', also known as sticky tailflower, is a species of shrub in the family Solanaceae, native to the south coast of Western Australia. It grows up to 3 metres in height and produces white or cream flowers between May and Feb ...

'' in minor quantities, and in ''

Anthocercis genistoides ''Anthocercis'', commonly known as tailflower, is a genus of shrubs which are endemic to southern temperate Australia with the center of distribution in the South West Botanical Province of Western Australia.George ''et al.''. (1982) All species ...

'' as its principal

. Meteloidine has been identified in ''Erythroxylum australe'', which is of

chemotaxonomic Merriam-Webster defines ''chemotaxonomy'' as the method of biological classification based on similarities and dissimilarity in the structure of certain compounds among the organisms being classified. Advocates argue that, as proteins are more cl ...

interest as meteloidine has been found in a number of the Solanacae family, but in only one species in the family ''

Erythroxylaceae Erythroxylaceae (the coca family) is a family of flowering trees and shrubs consisting of 4 genera and 271 species. The four genera are '' Aneulophus'' Benth., '' Erythroxylum'' P.Browne, '' Nectaropetalum'' Engl., and '' Pinacopodium'' Exell & ...

''.

References

Diols Tropane alkaloids Tropane alkaloids found in Solanaceae {{alkaloid-stub

Occurrence

See also

References