| dc.description.abstract | Cactaceae is a botanical Family represented by a high diversity of succulent plants, popularly known as cacti, which stand out for their evolutionary and adaptive capabilities to more arid regions. Many species are used as ornamental plants, food and medicinal sources. As for the chemical composition of cacti, alkaloids are the most important compounds identified in species of this family. The porpuse of this present work sought to review bibliographically the distribution of alkaloids identified in species of the Cactaceae Family by searching the main databases (Science Direct, Medline and Scopus). Basically, βphenethylaminic protoalkaloids (42%) and isoquinoline alkaloids (40%), tryptamines (10%), cyclopeptides (3%) and others (5%) have been reported in Cactaceae. The subfamily Cactoideae has the largest number of studied species, with a strong predominance of βphenethylaminic and isoquinolinic alkaloids, with isoquinolinic alkaloids occurring exclusively in this subfamily. The tryptamine alkaloids occurred only in the subfamilies Cactoideae and Pereskioideae, while the cyclopeptide alkaloids occurred exclusively in the subfamily Opuntioideae. Tyramine (3) and mescaline (21) are the compounds most identified in Cactaceae, present in about 43% and 31.5% of the species studied, respectively. Some specific types of alkaloids are suggested as potential chemotaxonomic markers. | |
