Abstract :
[en] Strychnos species (Loganiaceae) have been studied in the laboratory of Pharmacognosy of the University of Liege for more than fifty years. Although investigations into the Strychnos genus have been going on for a long time in the case of Asian tetanizing and American curarizing species, the first chemical and pharmacological screening on African species was undertaken in the early nineteen fifties by the late Prof A. Denoel (University of Liege, Belgium), who examined twenty-five species of Strychnos collected in the Belgian Congo [1]. This research programme was also an offshoot of an inventory of medicinal and toxic plants in Rwanda, carried out during the years 1969-1970. The Belgian scientists were lucky to observe the tribe of Banyambo, living along the Akagera river on the border between Rwanda and Tanzania, where hunters prepared in front of them an arrow poison with Strychnos usambarensis roots and leaves as the main ingredients [2]. Strychnos species have several ethnobotanical uses. A few species are well known for their incorporation into arrow and ordeal poisons, but play more a role in ethnomedicine against fever, rheumatism, worms, ulcers, leprosy, snake-bites, and so forth [3]. In fact, among about one hundred and ninety species, only six would contain strychnine (1) (Strychnos nux-vomica L. [4-7], S. ignatii P. Bergius [8, 9], and S. wallichiana Steud ex DC. [7, 10] from Asia, S. lucida R. Br. [7, 11] from Australia, S. icaja Baillon [1, 12] from Africa, and S. panamensis [13-15] from South America). Strychnos alkaloids are in fact an example of molecular and pharmacological biodiversity. More than 300 different Strychnos alkaloids have been isolated to date and theypresent various biological activities in several fields: parasitology (amoebiasis, paludism, etc.) [ 16-18], cancer [ 19-22], neurology (tetanizing or curarizing effects) [14, 23, 24-26], inflammation [27], and so on.
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