Poisonous Piperidine Plants and the Biodiversity of Norditerpenoid Alkaloids for Leads in Drug Discovery: Experimental Aspects.

There are famous examples of simple (e.g., hemlock, L.) and complex (e.g., opium poppy, L., Papaveraceae) piperidine-alkaloid-containing plants. Many of these are highly poisonous, whilst pepper is well-known gastronomically, and several substituted piperidine alkaloids are therapeutically beneficial as a function of dose and mode of action. This review covers the taxonomy of the genera , , and the controversial . As part of studying the biodiversity of norditerpenoid alkaloids (NDAS), the majority of which possess an -ethyl group, we also quantified the fragment occurrence count in the SciFinder database for NDA skeletons. The wide range of NDA biodiversity is also captured in a review of over 100 recently reported isolated alkaloids. Ring A substitution at position 1 is important to determine the NDA skeleton conformation. In this overview of naturally occurring highly oxygenated NDAs from traditional and plants, consideration is given to functional effect and to real functional evidence. Their high potential biological activity makes them useful candidate molecules for further investigation as lead compounds in the development of selective drugs.