Alkaloids isolated from indigenous South African Amaryllidaceae: Crinum buphanoides (Welw. ex Baker), Crinum graminicola (I. Verd.), Cyrtanthus mackenii (Hook. f) and Brunsvigia grandiflora (Lindl)

WOS: 000445521800024Screening for alkaloids produced in four indigenous South African Amaryllidaceae plants, namely, Crinum buphanoides Welw. ex Baker, Crinum graminicola I. Verd., Cyrtanthus mackenii Hook. f and Brunsvigia grandiflora Lindl, leads to the isolation of lycorine as the one metabolite produced by all the species studied. C. graminicola produced lycorine in the best yield (2.1 g/kg). Moreover, 1-O-acetyl-and 2-O-acetyl-lycorine, pratorimine, hippadine and tazettine were isolated from C. buphanoides. Haemanthidine, haemanthamine and criwelline were isolated from C. graminicola, while tazettine and 11-hydroxyvittatine were produced by C. mackenii. Finally, crinamine and 11-hydroxyvittatine were isolated from B. grandiflora. This is the very first report on the isolation of these alkaloids from the four South African Amaryllidaceae. Furthermore, some interesting chemosystematic evaluations are reported. (c) 2018 SAAB. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.South-Africa Ministry of Foreign Affairs Area: South Africa, Medicine and Health [ZA14MO06]; UniNA; Compagnia di San PaoloCompagnia di San Paolo [E62F16001250003]; National Research Foundation of South AfricaNational Research Foundation - South Africa [113322]The work was supported in part by grants from a bilateral project between the Italian and South-Africa Ministry of Foreign Affairs Area: South Africa, Medicine and Health Project number: ZA14MO06, titled: Bioactive metabolites from South-African plants with anticancer activity and in part by the Programme STAR 2017, financially supported by UniNA and Compagnia di San Paolo grant number E62F16001250003. WvO and IRG thank the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) (Incentive and CPRR funding), and Stellenbosch University (Faculty and Departmental support). WvO and IRG acknowledge this work is based in part by support from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 113322). A NEMBA application is being processed. The authors thank Mr. Pierfrancesco Motti and Ms. Nadia Serino for their contributions to this work and thank Dr. Martin Smit (Curator - Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden) for facilitation of live plant specimens