Erythrina Alkaloids: An Updated Review with Neurological Perspective.

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Cairo 11566, Egypt

2 Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University

3 a Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Cairo 11566, Egypt. b Center for Drug Discovery Research and Development, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Cairo 11566, Egypt

Abstract

Erythrina is a genus comprising several plant species that are distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. This genus is a source of many phytoconstituents, with alkaloids and flavonoids as the main bioactive components. Erythrina alkaloids are characterized by a unique nucleus. One hundred ninety-eight alkaloids were isolated from Erythrina plants till early 2023. Recently, an increase in the number of isolated dimeric alkaloids has been witnessed. Erythrina plants have been used in the management of different conditions as oxidative stress and diseases like cancer, inflammation, viral diseases, malaria, and diabetes, with the alkaloids showing a good potential against certain neurological disorders like anxiety, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease. All data on Erythrina alkaloids were collected from Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, SCOPUS, SciFinder. For compounds isolated from multiple Erythrina species, the plant source was traced only from 2008 till 2023. The reported anxiolytic, anti-convulsant, anti-Alzheimer’s activities of Erythrina plant metabolites were traced from 2002 till 2023.

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