Secondary metabolites of Solanaceae plants, sharing tropane skeleton as a common structural feature, are sharply divided into two classes:
tropine and
ecgonine derivatives. The first group, represented by well known
alkaloids:
atropine and
scopolamine, which are considered to be model
anticholinergic drugs, continues to provide inspiration in the search for more selective
muscarinic receptor antagonists. The second class accommodates one of the principal drugs of
abuse, cocaine. Synthesis of much needed
cocaine antagonists, despite extensive research, has not been particularly successful. Therefore, new concepts of
cocaine abuse treatment resort to
immunotherapy and biotechnology. Contemporary pharmaceutical industry manufactures over 20 active
pharmaceutical substances containing tropane moiety in their structure, which are applied as
mydriatics,
antiemetics,
antispasmodics,
anesthetics and
bronchodilators. There are two sources of raw materials for this industrial activity: natural products isolated from cultivated transgenic plants (mainly
scopolamine and
atropine from Australian Duboisia) and chemical synthesis based on common intermediate:
tropinone, which can be further transformed by synthetic means to the following classes of compounds:
tropine and its
esters (tropeines), scopine and nortropine derivatives, and tropane quaternary
ammonium salts. This survey focuses on new developments in chemistry and pharmacology of tropane derivatives, particularly in view of their prospective industrial applications as
therapeutics.