Indole alkaloids represent an important group of compounds due to their physiological roles in plants, their ecological significance in plant-organism interactions and their use by man.
The biosynthesis of indole alkaloids will be presented, starting from chorismate and ending with the formation of tryptamine, strictosidine and their derivatives. A section will be presented which will explain some of the methods used to elucidate and further characterize the compounds and enzymes involved in this path.
To properly explain these methods, the information gained from them will be presented first. This will include the path itself, the mechanisms involved in the transformations, information on the enzymes involved as well as a small amount of information on the role of these secondary metabolites in plant physiology and chemical ecology.

This paper surveys some of the information obtained on the pathway from chorismate to the indole alkaloids, but is not meant to be exhaustive in any respect. It should also be kept in mind that this work is a simplification of many of the details actually involved in this pathway. It has been subdivided into three components, pathways, products and procedures.

Pathways looks at the chemical transformations involved in each biosynthetic step from chorismate to tryptamine and the terpenoid indole alkaloids.
Products surveys some of the final secondary metabolites produced in this path, especially in reference to the higher plants. This includes many medicinally used terpenoid indole alkaloids and the simple indole alkaloids.
Procedures gives a quick glimpse of the historical methodology used to determine the earlier portion of the pathways, as well as some of the more recent basic procedures and terminology used in molecular biological aspects of the path.
Due to formatting problems, I lost the references to this paper,however you can get a general list of references here or you can download a zipped version of the entire paper in the original word format which includes all the footnotes in their proper formatting.

HOME