There is a natural glucoside of unknown biological benefit for its producers. It is produced by plant species as well as beetles. Tests against some standard bacterial and fungal strains as well as human cell lines showed no toxicity or inhibition respectively. How could we find out about possible biological benefits?
Thanks in advance for your ideas!
One idea that was given to me was to have a look at the aglycon, thanks for this comment!
Unfortunately, the glucosidic bond is extremely stable, even in highly acidic aqueous solution (pH = 0), it is not cleaved at room temperature, which is very unusual for glucosidic bonds. This holds true after application of beta-glucosidase from almonds. Anyway the free aglycon is a heterocycle, which is unstable in aqueous solution, when it is not bound to sth. The major degradation product of this heterocycle in water is cyano-acetic acid, which is not really toxic.
Dear
The natural compounds are extremely valuable especially in drug discovery and design. You can go ahead with the antimicrobial activity, do all preclinical studies, and may sell a new drug. However you can test a large amount of biological activities through in vitro tests, then in vivo and preclinical and clinical trials. The stability and solubility tests are important.
Good luck
Dear Dr Becker
it is a very interesting situation. In nature the secondary metabolites are often involved in complex interaction at a ecologic level. It is known as allelopathy. It is a phenomenon by which an organism may influence other organism living in the same ecologic niche. As example it is well known the case of walnut tree which produce several compounds that inhibit the growth of other species. Your compound may be involved in a phenomenon like this. It may have other properties than the antibacterial or enzyme inhibitor activities. It may have a repellent role toward herbivores due to the bad taste or odour of the aglycone moiety and it may be released only after a damage of the vegetal structures when the compound may be available as a substrate for glucosidases. Its presence in the beetles may be due to different causes. One may be of course the self production of the same compound the second may be a selective accumulation, if the beetles normally eat this plant species. Surely it is a case that deserves a thorough study.
To get you some ideas you can take a look at the following article:
Fung S.Y., et al., (1988), “Butenolides in small ermine moths, Yponomeuta spp. (Lepidoptera: Yponomeutidae), and spindle-tree, Euonymus europaeus (Celastraceae).” J Chem Ecol., 14(4), pp 1099-111. doi: 10.1007/BF01019338
Thanks for the nice ideas. I will provide more info on this topic here soon.
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