research communications Crystal structure of akuammicine, an indole alkaloid from Catharanthus roseus ISSN 2056-9890 Mahdi Yahyazadeh,a‡ Gerold Jerz,b Dirk Selmar,a Peter Winterhalterb and Peter G. Jonesc* aInstitut fu¨r Pflanzenbiologie, Technische Universita¨t Braunschweig, Mendelssohnstrasse 4, 38106 Braunschweig, b Received 28 September 2017 Germany, Institut fu¨r Lebensmittelchemie, Technische Universita¨t Braunschweig, Schleinitzstrasse 20, 38106 c Accepted 9 October 2017 Braunschweig, Germany, and Institut fu¨r Anorganische und Analytische Chemie, Technische Universita¨t Braunschweig, Hagenring 30, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany. *Correspondence e-mail:
[email protected] Edited by D. Chopra, Indian Institute of Science The title compound, C20H22N2O2, an alkaloid isolated from the Madagascar Education and Research Bhopal, India periwinkle, crystallizes in P1 with two independent but closely similar molecules in the unit cell. The molecules are linked into pairs by two N—HÁÁÁO C ‡ On leave from Yasouj University, Yasouj, hydrogen bonds. The absolute configuration was confirmed by anomalous Kohgiluyeh Va Boyer Ahmad, Iran. dispersion effects as S at the 3 and 15 positions, and R at the 7 position. Keywords: crystal structure; indole alkaloid; absolute configuration. CCDC reference: 1578796 1. Chemical context Supporting information: this article has supporting information at journals.iucr.org/e The Madagascar periwinkle or rosy periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus L. G. Don), a member of the family Apocynaceae, is one of the most intensively studied medicinal plants (Sotto- mayor et al., 1998; Sreevalli et al., 2004). Aerial parts of the plant contain between 0.2 and 1% of a mixture of more than 120 alkaloids (van Der Heijden et al., 2004).