Hordenine
Encyclopedia
Hordenine is a phenethylamine
Phenethylamine
Phenylethylamine or phenethylamine is a natural monoamine alkaloid, trace amine, and also the name of a class of chemicals with many members well known for psychoactive drug and stimulant effects. Studies suggest that phenylethylamine functions as a neuromodulator or neurotransmitter in the...

 alkaloid
Alkaloid
Alkaloids are a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds that contain mostly basic nitrogen atoms. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Also some synthetic compounds of similar structure are attributed to alkaloids...

 with antibacterial and antibiotic
Antibiotic
An antibacterial is a compound or substance that kills or slows down the growth of bacteria.The term is often used synonymously with the term antibiotic; today, however, with increased knowledge of the causative agents of various infectious diseases, antibiotic has come to denote a broader range of...

 properties. It stimulates the release of norepinephrine
Norepinephrine
Norepinephrine is the US name for noradrenaline , a catecholamine with multiple roles including as a hormone and a neurotransmitter...

 in mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s, working as a stimulant
Stimulant
Stimulants are psychoactive drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both. Examples of these kinds of effects may include enhanced alertness, wakefulness, and locomotion, among others...

. It is produced in nature by several varieties of plants in the family Cactaceae and by some in Acacia
Acacia
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...

.

Occurrence in nature

Sprouting Hordeum vulgare (barley) seeds contain hordenine as the main alkaloid in their roots.

Peyote
Peyote
Lophophora williamsii , better known by its common name Peyote , is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline.It is native to southwestern Texas and Mexico...

 (Lophophora
Lophophora
Lophophora is a genus of spineless, button-like cacti native to the southwestern United States through Northeast Mexico and South to Querétaro in central Mexico....

 williamsii
), San Pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi
Echinopsis pachanoi
The San Pedro cactus is a fast-growing columnar cactus native to the Andes Mountains of Peru between 2000–3000 m in altitude. It is also found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador, and it is cultivated in other parts of the world...

), and Peruvian Torch cactus (Echinopsis peruviana) all produce high levels of this compound. These cacti also produce high levels of mescaline
Mescaline
Mescaline or 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine is a naturally occurring psychedelic alkaloid of the phenethylamine class used mainly as an entheogen....

 and other phenylethylamine compounds.

Cacti
Cacti
-See also:* RRDtool The underlying software upon which Cacti is built* MRTG The original Multi Router Traffic Grapher from which RRDtool was "extracted".* Munin -External links:******...

 in the genus Ariocarpus
Ariocarpus
Ariocarpus is a genus of 8 species of succulent, subtropical plants of the Cactaceae family.The name comes from the ancient Greek "aria" and "carpos" because of the resemblance of the fruit of the two genus in acorn form...

, Opuntia
Opuntia
Opuntia, also known as nopales or paddle cactus , is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae.Currently, only prickly pears are included in this genus of about 200 species distributed throughout most of the Americas. Chollas are now separated into the genus Cylindropuntia, which some still consider...

, Pereskia
Pereskia
Pereskia is a genus of about 25 tropical species and varieties of cacti that do not look much like other types of cacti, having substantial leaves and thin stems. They originate from the region between Brazil and Mexico. The genus is named after Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a 16th century...

, and Coryphantha
Coryphantha
Coryphantha or Beehive cactus is a genus of small to middle-sized, globous to short-columnar cacti. The genus is found from Mexico to southern New Mexico and Texas in the United States...

also produce these alkaloids, though not in high concentrations.

Aztekium
Aztekium
The genus Aztekium contains only two species of small globular cactus. Discovered in 1929 by F. Ritter, in Rayones, Nuevo León, Mexico, this genus was thought to be monotypic until a second species was discovered by George S...

also contains it.

Hordenine exhibits an inhibitory action against at least 18 strains of penicillin resistant Staphylococcus bacteria
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It is also called multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus...

.
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