Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Acesso aberto Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

Unraveling the Biosynthesis of Pilocarpine in Pilocarpus microphyllus

2015; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 10; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1934578x1501000506

1934-578X

Alexandra Christine Helena Frankland Sawaya, Yanna Dias Costa, Paulo Mazzafera,

Berberine and alkaloids research

Pilocarpine is found exclusively in species of Pilocarpus and the presence of other imidazole alkaloids has been reported in several species of the genus. Pilocarpine has several important pharmaceutical applications. Although several imidazole alkaloids related to pilocarpine have been reported in the previous years, little is still known about its biosynthetic route. At most, histidine has been reported as the precursor of pilocarpine. Based on our own previous reports and in an experiment where pilocarpine and related alkaloids (pilosine, trachyllophiline and anhydropilosine) were supplied to P. microphyllus leaves and the alkaloid profile analyzed by UPLC-MS, we suggest a biosynthesis pathway for pilocarpine. Further experiments using labeled precursors associated with transcriptome data may allow us to understand the whole biosynthesis pathway and its genetic control.