الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Plants are autotrophs that work as the most important food source for animals and microorganisms. Since plants cannot run or fight against herbivores, as well as their inability to fight against pathogenic bacteria, fungi, viruses, or parasites, they produced defense mechanisms to struggle for life and compete with neighbouring plants for space, light, water, and nutrients (Harborne, 1993), (Michael Wink & Roberts, 1998). Within this context, alkaloids function as storage spaces for nitrogen in the plant. Also they work as growth regulators (inhibitors or stimulators), since their structures resemble growth regulators (since structures of some of them are similar to the structures of known growth regulators) (Srivasatava, 2022). As an example, the diterpenoid alkaloids are related in chemical structure to the gibberellins in that the AlB ring junction is similar in the two groups of compounds and is antipodal to that of most naturally occurring steroids. Therefore, the compounds delcosine and delsoline were growth-inhibiting for both phloem and xylem tissue. In addition, applying lupanine solution to leaves of sweet L. albus, Nowotny-Mieczynska and Zientkiewicz (1955) were able to show a growth stimulating property of the applied alkaloid. As a conclusion, hydroxylated alkaloids like lupinine and hydroxylupanine showed stimulatory effects to plant growth, while sparteine and lupanine proved to be inhibitory (Srivasatava, 2022). |