gloriosa rothschildiana/tyrosine

Few complete pathways have been established for the biosynthesis of medicinal compounds from plants. Accordingly, many plant-derived therapeutics are isolated directly from medicinal plants or plant cell culture¹. A lead example is colchicine, a US Food and Drug Administration

The defensive secretion of the alpine chrysomelidOreina gloriosa is a complex mixture of mainly cardenolides and tyrosine betaine. Individually sampled secretions of adult laboratory-reared and field-collected beetles were analyzed by reverse-phase HPLC; 16 secretion components were quantified.