Book Reviews HUMAN MEDICINAL AGENTS from PLANTS. Edited By
ISRAEL JOURNAL OF PLANT SCIENCES, Vol. 42, I 994, pp. 63--68
Book Reviews
HUMAN MEDICINAL AGENTS FROM PLANTS. Edited by A. Douglas Kinghorn and Manuel F. Balandrin. 1993. ACS Symposium Series 534, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 356 pp. $89.95. ISBN 0-8419-2705-S. This volume, evolving from the ACS Symposium on Human Medicinal Agents from Plants, San Francisco, 5-10 April, 1992, encompasses a wide range of disciplines. It is composed of four sections: current role and importance of plant-derived natural products in drug discovery and development; anticancer and cancer chemopreventive agents from plants; anti-infective and antimicrobial chemotherapeutic agents from plants; and promising plant-derived natural products with multiple biological activities. The major portion is devoted to accounts of current research on drugs from plants, including plants from rain forests, for the treatment of cancer, AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Part of the book is devoted to the following phytomedicines: Ginkgo, which is the extract of the leaves of Ginkgo biloba, consists of tlavonoids, diterpenoids such as ginkgolides A, B, and C, and a sesquiterpene, bilobalide, which is used in treating decreased cerebral blood flow; Echinacea, the rhizome and wort of E. pallida (Nutt.) and E. augustifolia, are used as anti-infective agents; Chamomile, a Matricaria recutita extract, possesses anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antibacterial, and mild sedative properties; Feverfew, an extract of leaves of Tanacetum parthenium (L.), is effective for treatment of migraine; Milk thistle, milk of the thistle Silybum marianum, contains tlavolignans, such as silybin, which protect the liver against toxins; Hawthorn, the leaves, flowers, and fruit of the hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata (Poit.) DC, is used as a heart remedy. Melissa, the oil of the leaves of Melissa officina/is L., is used as a sedative, spasmolytic, and antibacterial agent. Several chapters describe the phytochemical and phytobiologial aspects of plants, especially those possessing anticancer activity. Thus, over the past 20 years, the National Cancer Institute investigators have screened over 23,000 plant samples for possible anticancer activity. The most significant compound was taxol, isolated from the bark of Taxus brevifolia, Nutt. Another compound was camptothecin, an alkaloid isolated from the Chinese ornamental tree, Camptotheca acuminata. Antileukemic diterpenes from Daphne genkura (Thymdaceae) are genkwadaphnin and yuanhuacin. The fruit of Bruceajavanica (Simaroubaceae) has been used as an herbal remedy for human cancer, amoebiasis, and malaria. The constituents are quassinoids, such as bruceoside A and B. Two new antileukemic triterpenes are maytenfolic acid and maytenfoliol isolated from Maytenus diversifolia (Celastraceae). Five cytotoxic antileukemic anthraquinones were isolated from Morinda parvifolia (Rubiaceae). Odorinol is an antileukemic diamide isolated from Aglaia odorata (Meliaceae). Daphnoretin is a phenolic dicoumaryl ether isolated from Wikstroemia indica (Thymelacaceae), which showed antitumor activity. 64 BOOK REVIEWS Jsr. J. Plant Sci.
Natural products with long biological activities were isolated from the following algal divisions: Chlorophyta, Rhodophyta, Phaeophyta, and Cyanophyta. Garlic (Allium sativum, L.) contains a series of sulfur-organic compounds which are biologically active as antibiotics and as agents reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It is important to point out that plant secondary products also serve as models for the design of new drugs and as precursors for their partial synthesis. The exciting lesson from this book is that it furnishes important information on the modern techniques of isolation, separation, and identification of the plant constituents possessing versatile biological activities. The wealth of information included in this book should be very useful to biochemists, ethnobotanists, molecular biologists, organic chemists, pharmacognosists, pharmacolo gists, taxonomists, and other scientists, both in academia and in industry. The editors should be congratulated for organizing the Symposium on Human Medicinal Agents from Plants, and for compiling and publishing this important and useful book. Raphael Ikan Laboratory of Natural Products and Organic Geochemistry, Department of Organic Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
PIGMENT-PROTEIN COMPLEXES IN PLASTIDS: SYNTHESIS AND ASSEMBLY. Edited by Christer Sundqvist and Margareta Ryberg.l993. Academic Press, San Diego, 520 pp. $139.00. ISBN 0-12-676960-5. This book is part of a series of monographs in Cell Biology published by Academic Press since 1984. The dedication of an entire volume to the pigment-protein complexes of plastids reflects the impressive progress made in the study of this subject since J. P. Markwell eta!. demonstrated that all the chlorophyll exists in vivo as complexes with proteins (Proc. Nat!. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 76: 1233-1235, 1979). The editors, in their preface, reflect the awareness that "thylakoid formation is not just a matter of diffusion or self assembly, but a multibiosynthetic process, which proceeds in parallel with a highly ordered transport mechanism and a sophisticated membrane insertion apparatus". Intended for "a broad group of readers", the first part includes several chapters with background and introductory material for the uninitiated. There is a chapter on plastid ultrastructure and development (by the editors and H. Ryberg), a comprehensive review on chlorophyll biosynthesis (W. R. Richards) along with good and concise chapters on protochlorophyllide reductase (R. Schulz and H. Senger) and chlorophyllide esterifica tion (W. Ri.idiger). Missing is a summary of our rather limited knowledge of the biosynthesis of chlorophyll b. This is unfortunate, since the formation of chlorophyll b is believed to play an important role in securing coordinated accumulation of the light harvesting complexes.