Secondary Metabolites from Plants: The Thin Border Between Beneficent and Harmful

Abstract

The main family of phytochemical compounds derived from naturally synthesised secondary metabolites are alkaloids, terpenoids and phenolics. Recently, these compounds known also as novel chemical entities (NCE) have been used as drug precursors or templates for synthetic moieties. Also, their potential for pharmacological applications has been as well extensively investigated. However, in recent years, a serious problem worldwide has become the use of illegal drugs, where to potential of some secondary metabolites to act as bio-or a psychoactive component is often refined. Considering that, forensic analysis of secondary metabolites from plants is of the utmost importance. Moreover, great effort has been given to developing testing strategies capable of identifying and quantifying secondary metabolites from various precursors over the past few years. Chromatography is a powerful instrumental technique in the analyses of selected NCE and seems entirely to fulfil the requirements of various laboratories all over the world.

Determination of Scopolamine by Gas Chromatography from Different Parts of the Datura innoxia Biomass

“…Quantitative investigation of scopolamine has been has been achieved in all matrices from Datura innoxia dry biomass at concentration ranging from 58.90 ±0.04 to 802.58 ±0.52 mg/kg in ethanol extracts and 63.64 ±0.03 to 1294.61 ±0.97 mg/kg in 1butanol extracts. The results obtained are in accordance with the lipophilicity of scopolamine, so a higher efficiency is achieved using the less polar, 1-butanol [3,33,41].…”

“…Higher plants (~ 300000 plant species in the world), are recognized to be an inexhaustible resource of bioactive compounds which contain hundreds of chemical constituents [1,2]. Moreover, as sources of medicinal compounds, have continued to play an important role in maintaining human health, providing novel chemical entities (NCE) with potential for pharmacological applications [3]. Typical plant bioactive compounds are secondary metabolites (alkaloids, phenolics, terpenoids, etc.)…”