Meet the editor

Joanna Kurek is a doctor of chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, and is currently working in the Laboratory for Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds in the Chemistry Department at the same university. She studied chemistry and received her master's degree in Chemistry from Adam Mickiewicz University. She is interested in organic chemistry and natural compounds, especially alkaloids.

Currently, her scientific interests are alkaloids, especially colchicine, its various derivatives, and their biological activities.

Contents

Human Life *by Joanna Kurek*

Synthesis of Tropane Derivatives

and Biological Activity

*by Abdulmajeed Salih Hamad Alsamarrai*

*by Md Abu Bakar Siddique and Nigel Brunton*

Anti-Corrosive Properties of Alkaloids on Metals *by Hui-Jing Li, Weiwei Zhang and Yan-Chao Wu*

**Preface III**

**Chapter 1 1**

**Chapter 2 9**

**Chapter 3 27**

**Chapter 4 47**

**Chapter 5 73**

Introductory Chapter: Alkaloids - Their Importance in Nature and for

Alkaloids of Pharmacological Importance in *Catharanthus roseus by Hebert Jair Barrales-Cureño, César Reyes Reyes, Irma Vásquez García, Luis Germán López Valdez, Adrián Gómez De Jesús, Juan Antonio Cortés Ruíz,* 

*Leticia Mónica Sánchez Herrera, María Carmina Calderón Caballero,* 

Food Glycoalkaloids: Distribution, Structure, Cytotoxicity, Extraction,

*Jesús Antonio Salazar Magallón, Jose Espinoza Perez and Jorge Montiel Montoya*

## Contents


Preface

Alkaloids are a vast group of naturally occurring organic compounds. They are mainly produced by certain plant species rather than by animals and are secondary metabolites. For thousands of years, they have been indispensable in the human diet in the form of food and drinks and were also especially useful as medicines. Alkaloids are very active compounds and induce specific reactions in the human body. They are antimitotic, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antibacterial, analgesic, local anesthetic and pain relief, neuropharmacological, antimicrobial, antifungal, anticorrosive, antiplasmodic, antiparasitic, antioxidative, antibacterial, anti-HIV, and insecticidal agents. Nowadays, scientists are trying to discover new semisynthetic and synthetic derivatives of naturally occurring alkaloids that will be effective medicines and also

This book contains chapters that describe various alkaloid applications. The chapters

**Joanna Kurek**

Poland

Chemistry Department,

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań,

I wish to thank Martina Josavac and Danijela Sakic, Author Service Managers at IntechOpen, for all email correspondence, which made this book possible.

could possess new applications.

are written by scientists who are specialized in this field.
