Aporphinoid

Following the erroneous assignment of an aporphinoid structure to argemonine (15), various structures were considered based on degradative and spectral evidence (16,17).

The first hypothesis seems to be preferable if the aporphinoid or shikimate–glutamate routes are considered.

The aporphinoid alkaloids are widely distributed in plants and although most commonly found in the Papaveraceae they have also been isolated from the Araceae, Lauraceae and Monimiaceae.

In recent years, the pharmacological activity of aporphinoids has been the subject of a great deal of research in the field of natural products.

At this point in our research we decided to investigate whether the need to devise ad hoc solutions for each separate aporphinoid might be done away with by developing a new method of aporphinoid synthesis that combined generality, convergence, simplicity and efficiency.

Both agonistic and antagonistic activities have been described, depending on the particular aporphinoid.