[Limpet Chicken]

I need to do an extraction of the periwinkle plant of the indole based anticancer drugs vinblastine or vincristine, I know the pink flowered madagascar periwinkle is the one used for commercial production of these alkaloids, but do either the blue flowered lesser or greater periwinkles contain vincristine/vinblastine to any extent? and how would I go about an extraction/purification?

Also, does anyone have the formula and structure for the chemical makeup of these alkaloids?

Thanks.

[movies]

I don't know about the extraction, but here are the structures, etc.:



I hope I didn't screw them up, I had to copy them out of a book.

[Limpet Chicken]

Thanks Movies, ooohhh...I can just see that this is going to be more difficult than I had thought, I don't suppose your book has any alternative nomenclature concerning vincristine/vinblastine does it? *looks hopeful*. Thanks again.

[movies]

What kind of alternative nomenclature are you looking for?  The IUPAC names?  There might be some other "common" names, but they probably wouldn't do you any good.

[Limpet Chicken]

Yeah, th IUPAC name was what I was after,  vincristine and vinblastine are indole based are they not, I was wondering if it wouldn't be possible to use them as a starting point for preparing various alkyl-substituted indole compounds, if not indole itself?

[movies]

Heh, yeah there is an indole in vinblastine, but that wouldn't be the best way to get at indole.  Indoles are so prevalent in natural products that there is a ton of different methods for making substituted indoles.  For starters, I would look into the Fischer, Bischler-Mohlau, Bartoli, and Madelung indole syntheses.

I would imagine that the simplest indole containing compound to get ahold of would be tryptophan.  Seratonin is available over the counter as well, and that's got an indole in it.

[Limpet Chicken]

Is serotonin REALLY available OTC (in the UK)?, so I could just walk in to a chemist and ask for serotonin? (no I don't plan on using it on myself LOL)

Or would it have to bee ordered from a supplier? i'm not too sure how suspicious that would bee though, due to it being a precursor, or at least a precursor to precursors of the tryptamines?

Thanks movies, you have been quite a lot of help.

[movies]

Seratonin is sold in the US over the counter, I think.  It's just on the shelves in the drug store.

It's sold as a natural anti-depressant.  I don't know if it actually works, but a lot of these herbal things are just hype anyway.

I might be thinking of melatonin, but hey, that's got an indole too.

[Limpet Chicken]

Serotonin won't cross the blood-brain barrier, melatonin isn't approved in the UK unfortunately, or I would be buying it by the kilo  
I have other uses for serotonin though, I'm getting a crapload of trichocereus peruvianus soon, and I have heard that a shot of serotonin every few weeks keeps them nice and happy LOL