Marton János, Cumming Paul, Rice Kenner C, Linders Joannes T M
ABX Advanced Biochemical Compounds Biomedizinische Forschungsreagenzien GmbH, Heinrich-Glaeser-Strasse 10-14, D-01454 Radeberg, Germany.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Bern University Hospital, Freiburgstraße 18, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2025 Mar 18;26(6):2736. doi: 10.3390/ijms26062736.
The word opium derives from the ancient Greek word ὄπιον (ópion) for the juice of any plant, but today means the air-dried seed capsule latex of . Alkaloid chemistry began with the isolation of morphine from crude opium by Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner in 1804. More than a century later, Hungarian pharmacist János Kabay opened new perspectives for the direct isolation of morphine from dry poppy heads and straw without the labor-intensive harvesting of opium. In 2015, Kabay's life and achievements obtained official recognition as constituting a «Hungarikum», thereby entering the national repository of matters of unique cultural value. To this day, the study of alkaloids is a focus of medicinal chemistry, the (perhaps unstated) aspiration of which is to obtain an opioid with lesser abuse potential and side effects, while retaining good analgesic properties. We begin this review with a brief account of opiate biosynthesis, followed by a detailed presentation of semisynthetic opioids, emphasizing the efforts of the Alkaloida Chemical Company, founded in 1927 by János Kabay, and the morphine alkaloid group of the University of Debrecen.
“opium”一词源于古希腊语“ὄπιον（ópion）”，原指任何植物的汁液，但如今指的是吗啡的空气干燥的蒴果乳胶。生物碱化学始于1804年弗里德里希·威廉·亚当·泽尔图纳从粗鸦片中分离出吗啡。一个多世纪后，匈牙利药剂师亚诺什·卡巴伊开创了从干罂粟果和罂粟秆中直接分离吗啡的新方法，无需费力地采集鸦片。2015年，卡巴伊的生平与成就获得官方认可，被认定为一种“匈牙利特色”，从而进入了具有独特文化价值事务的国家宝库。时至今日，生物碱的研究仍是药物化学的一个重点，其（或许未明确表述的）愿望是获得一种滥用潜力和副作用较小、同时保留良好镇痛特性的阿片类药物。我们在这篇综述开篇简要介绍阿片生物合成，随后详细阐述半合成阿片类药物，重点介绍1927年由亚诺什·卡巴伊创立的阿尔卡洛伊达化学公司以及德布勒森大学的吗啡生物碱研究团队所做的工作。
