Scopolia

Abstract: Tropane alkaloids are among the oldest drugs in medicine. Besides the medicinal use they possess hallucinogenic and poisonous properties. Many plants belonging to the Solanaceae family have been used for centuries because of their active principles, hyoscyamine and scopolamine. The name hyoscyamine is derived from Hyoscyamus niger from which these two tropane alkaloids also for the first time were isolated.1,2 Later on Dunstan and Brown3 detected hyoscyamine in H. muticus. Also other Solanaceous plants belonging to Atropa, Datura, Duboisia and Scopolia produce these valuable alkaloids.

Abstract: Four new hydroxycinnamic acid amides, scotanamines A–D (1–4), and seven known alkaloids, including N 1,N 10-di-dihydrocaffeoylspermidine (5), scopolamine (6), anisodamine (7), hyoscyamine (8), anisodine (9), caffeoylputrescine (10), and N 1-caffeoyl-N 3-dihydrocaffeoylspermidine (11), were obtained from the roots of Scopolia tangutica. The present study represents the first recognition of hydroxycinnamic acid amides containing putrescine or spermidine in S. tangutica. Compound 1, in particular, contains a moiety resulting from the condensation of nortropinone and putrescine. Compound 2 exhibited moderate agonist activity at the µ-opioid receptor (EC50 = 7.3 µM). Compound 2 was tested in vivo and induced analgesia in mice. The analgesic effect was recorded using the tail-flick assay and was reversed by naloxone.