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Alkaloids from frog skin: the discovery of epibatidine and the potential for developing novel non-opioid analgesics.

Research on the nature, structure and biological activity of the toxins present in the skin of poison-dart frogs of South America began in the Laboratory of Chemistry at the National Institutes of Health in the mid-1960s. The presence of toxins in the skin of such frogs had been discovered long ago by Indians of Western Colombia, who to this day use skin secretions from three Colombian species of dendrobatid frogs (genus Phyllobates) to poison the grooved tips of blow darts used in hunting small game and birds. Initial field work on a poison-dart frog of the Rio San Juan drainage, and preparation of extracts was first conducted by F. Marki in 1962 and then by Daly in 1964 and 1966. The toxic principles were isolated and proved on structural analysis to be steroidal alkaloids, which were named batrachotoxins.1 These were then shown to be specific and potent activators of sodium channels.2 Both the natural alkaloids and a radioactive analog have proven to be invaluable research tools for the study of sodium channels and their interaction with local anesthetics, anticonvulsants, antiarrythmics and other drugs.3 The structure of batrachotoxin and other alkaloids, subsequently isolated from frog skin, are shown in Fig. 1. These initial studies on the batrachotoxin alkaloids from the poison-dart frogs of Western Colombia might never have been extended to some sixty species of poison-frogs of the neotropical family Dendrobatidae, had not Charles W. Myers, a herpetologist working on the reptiles and amphibians of Panama, contacted Daly and proposed a collaboration on the toxicity of an extremely variable dendrobatid frog (genus Dendrobates) of the Bocas Archipelago of Panama. The initial hypothesis, namely that the more brightly colored populations would contain higher levels of toxic alkaloids, proved incorrect. However, the analyses revealed not the steroidal batrachotoxins, but instead a variety of simpler bicyclic alkaloids, including the relatively toxic pumiliotoxins and relatively nontoxic decahydroquinolines.4 The pumiliotoxins and related alkaloids later were shown to be potent myotonic/cardiotonic agents5 with modulatory effects on sodium channels.6 The initial field work by Myers and Daly led to a thirty year friendship and collaboration with the aim of analyzing the distribution, nature, structure and biological activity of alkaloids in frog skin. A major field trip by Myers and Daly in the early 1970s led to the isolation and structural determination of relatively nontoxic bicyclic histrionicotoxins,7 later established as highaffinity noncompetitive blockers of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-channels (nAChRs).3 Over the next three decades more than 500 alkaloids of at least two dozen structural classes were discovered, most of which have, as yet, not been found elsewhere in nature.8,9 This is remarkable, since the dendrobatid frogs apparently do not synthesize any of their skin alkaloids, but instead sequester them unchanged into skin glands from dietary sources10 to be used as secreted chemical deterrents to predators. The search over the past five years for the dietary sources of the batrachotoxins, pumiliotoxins and histrionicotoxins has been frustrating, but some six classes of relatively simple decahydroquinolines, piperidines, pyrrolidines and “izidines” of dendrobatid frog skin have been found in ants, while certain of the tricyclic and spiropyrrolizidine alkaloids occur in beetles and millipedes, respectively.10,11 Fig. 1 Structures of epibatidine and other alkaloids discovered in skin extracts from poison frogs (family Dendrobatidae). Batrachotoxin from Colombian Phyllobates aurotaenia,1 pumiliotoxin B from Panamanian Dendrobates pumilio,4 histrionicotoxin from Colombian Dendrobates histrionicus,7 and epibatidine and alkaloids 251D, 251H and 341A from Ecuadorian Epipedobates tricolor.12–14,16 EMINENT SCIENTIST REVIEW