ÜBER DIE BEDEUTUNG DES SKLEROTIALEN ZUSTANDES VON CLAVICEPS PURPUREA (FRIES) TUL. FÜR DIE ALKALOIDSYNTHESE¹

Summary

Freshly collected sclerotia of Claviceps purpurea seem to be able to continue alkaloidal synthesis as long as they are not fully ripe and dry. Addition of lysergic acid and elymoclavine stimulates the synthesis of alkaloids of the peptide type.

The same ability to synthesize peptide alkaloids (ergotamin) was observed with sclerotia–like formations of surface cultures of the fungus. These sclerotia–like structures may even be dried. After remoistening and addition of tryptophane or elymoclavine a rather intensiv synthesis of ergotamine takes place.

It seems likely that elymoclavine is incorporated in the peptide alkaloids synthesized. This, however, has not yet been proved by feeding radioactive elymoclavine.

Furthermore, it could be demonstrated that sclerotia and sclerotized mycelia may transform great amounts of lysergic acid or elymoclavine to compounds which do no longer react with the reagent of Van Urk. They will, therefore, not be estimated with the methods in use to detect and estimate ergot alkaloids, but they may be chemically still much alike the latter compounds.

This transformation to unknown compounds is very important in all investigations of biogenesis of ergot alkaloids.