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Studies on the biosynthesis of the morphine alkaloids

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thesis
posted on 2018-07-26, 09:02 authored by Stewart R. Massey
Earlier work on the biosynthesis of morphine in the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is reviewed in chapter I. A variety of unnatural codeine precursors, closely related structurally to codeine and labelled with 3H at C-2, have been prepared and administered to P. somniferum plants. Their in vivo 3-0-demethylation to give the corresponding morphine compounds was investigated using radiodilution techniques. Each of the feeding experiments utilised [N-methyl-14C]codeine as an internal standard and the efficiency of the unnatural 3-0-demethylations was compared with that observed for the natural conversion of codeine into morphine. Dihydrodesoxycodeine was more efficiently converted into dihydrodesoxymorphine than was codeine into morphine. The least efficiently demethylated unnatural precursor of the series was 1-bromocodeine. [Continues.]

Funding

Science Research Council.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Chemistry

Publisher

© Stewart R. Massey

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

1971

Notes

A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy at Loughborough University.

Language

  • en

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