why do plants produce alkaloids?

[Pander Bear]

^^
ya, but those "available results" are also BS, becuase they were reached by "science".

Faith and science can certainly coexist. One must be careful not to write off the current world as ordained by god, though. I doubt anybody would claim that because animals produce carbon dioxide and consume oxygen, and plants the opposite, that our relationship with plants could not have arisen by any way aside from the hand of god. That would be leaping to a conclusion without all the available information.

Plants and animals produce scads of chemicals that have no impact on our mind at all, they also produce harmful toxins. A select few produce mystical experiences when consumed. That alone does not indicate that they were "meant" to be consumed, or that consumption by another organism is their purpose. You are not delicious to tigers because you were meant to be eaten by them. Evolution does occour. Point mutations producing meaningless variations within a group does happen.

This, if you have faith, shouldn't diminish the value of a psychedelic experience. Faith doesn't require facts. It certinly doesn't the help of "bullshit" schemes involving aliens seeding the Earth with psychedelic species, or lower species communicating with us by means of memetic information encoded within psychoactive molecules, or some other sort of rubbish.

 

[BilZ0r]

^ Ahh the middle road... Buddha really was right...

Not that I'm not down with the middle road, just that I often spend so much time defending one extreme I forget how good the middle is.

 

[james_dean_dean]

^ I drive on the RHS of the road.

 

[fastandbulbous]

Laughter - the best medicine

You are not delicious to tigers because you were meant to be eaten by them.

Atlas, after I'd finished laughing at the above statement, I have to say that it's one of the best counter-arguements to the whole "psychedelics are here for us to communicate with plants, aliens etc" bollocks. Every now and again there are absolute gems in that they illustrate a point clearly and in a humourous way; the above is definitly included in my "best of counteracting the bullshit theories" collection.

 

[Jamshyd]

Fizzacyst: My wording was wrong. I meant to say that I did not think it was a mutation to begin with (and if you read my previous post, I also allude to this belief in my questions).

Bilzor: Yes, I am aware I am not an expert in neuropharmacology. DMT suppsedly binds to 5-HT receptors, right? So does Serotonin. That is simply what I meant. As far as science knows, I believe thjere is no "DMT" receptor.

Do you know the exact pharmacological action of psychedelics? Why, say, DMT and DPT are different in effects? I think not, nor does science. I see pharmacology as people making wild guesses about things they can only test a little part of empirically. I just think there is more to the world than empirical rationalism. And as long as this is what neuropharmacology embraces, we will never get anywhere.

Of course, I could be wrong.

You don't seem to understand what science is, either. Science is no authority. It is a way of looking at things, a method of trying to determine how and why. It is a progress acheived through consensus and repetition. Science is pretty much always primitive relative to what will be learned in the future. One must be willing to accept that drastic changes in thought might be neccesary. I don't understand how people who take psychedelics cant understand that.

But when you look at everything from a scientific point of view, then you see science as the most validpoint of view, no? Thats what I meant by authority. All your posts point to the fact that you believe in the authority of science,especially your response to my first post in this thread.

A scientist has no hardcoded beliefs on what s/he studies. I might not be so cold to the idea of alkaloids being spiritual vessels of some sort of a plant if it made any sense, or had any validity. Show me some evidence, and I'll listen.

What kind of evidence do you want? Mysticism is highly personal. No one can "show you evidence" but yourself. And that is why I give my opinions as being simply my opinions. If others agree, then great. If others don't, then thats fine too.

 

[BilZ0r]

DMT only binds to a small subset of 5-HT receptors, not all of them like serotonin does, mainly the 5-HT2A/C and 5-HT1A receptors.

While one can't explain all the differences between hallucinogens from a pharmacological/physiological view point right now, that doesn't point to an inherent flaw in scientific thinking, it just points to the fact that doing research into hallucinogens in hard for many reasons, from political to practical. One can hypothesis from current research at least 3 different continuums that classical hallucinogenic drugs (5-HT2A receptor agonists) could fit on. They could be be strong to weak, NMDA antagonists, they could be strong to weak glutamate releasers, and they could be strong to weak 5-HT1A receptor agonists... with that palate to paint with, I for one can imagine a lot of differing effects from hallucinogens.

 

[fizzacyst]

This was on erowid or somewhere... can't remember now the artivle it was from. May be of interest to you guys, though.

Secondary products were originally believed to play no role in plant physiology or ecological interactions, believing to be simply the result of the metabolic pressure of accumulation of primary products. The theory that these secondary products gave plants a selective advantage through protective devices and therefore developed as an evolutionary adaptation was suggested, the main failing being that it did not address compounds with seemingly little use or plants without much or any secondary metabolism. A third suggestion which tends to fall between these two is that the buildup of primary products did lead to new secondary products, which while they may not offer an advantage now, did at some point in the plants evolutionary history; plants which do not produce secondary products may simply have developed alternative modes of protection. This study supported the third theory indicating that few microorganisms produce alkaloids with pharmacological activity in animals, but do produce compounds with antibiotic and mycotoxic effects. Plants were similarly noted to create alkaloids with effects on organisms of a similar scale to themselves, animals and other plants, but had fewer compounds directed against microorganisms. Both examples pointed to fitness or evolutionary-based control of secondary metabolic production.

An extreme example of this chemical protection mechanism is in the glucosinolates, which are found in the vacuoles of some plants, and which include an indole form of glucosinolate. When plant tissue containing vacuoles with these compounds are damaged, the glucosinolates escape and are hydrolyzed into isothiocyanates, which have a toxic effect on most cells via alkylation reactions.

The toxic effect ("phalaris staggers") of Gramineae, as in the Phalaris genus noticed in ruminants such as sheep has been associated with their production of the indole alkaloids gramine, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenine. Further studies on gramine in another Gramineae, barley lead to the finding that it could be found in especially high concentrations in the youngest leaves, where it had a negative effect on aphid population growth rates. Aphids of the species Rhopulosiphum padi L. and Schizaphis graminum were found to decrease their feeding behavior in the presence of higher concentrations of gramine in barley and were even found to have higher mortality rates when fed an artificial diet containing similar concentrations of gramine. Aphids known to feed off a variety of species were noted to choose low-alkaloid producing plants, while aphids with high species specificity were noted to ingest plants with higher levels of alkaloids, presumably as a modification which allows them to use the alkaloids in their own defense. This use of the plants secondary products goes one step beyond the typical evolution in parasitic organisms, that of formation of detoxification systems specific to the host organism.

To test the influence that tryptamine had on insect feeding and oviposition patterns, one study genetically transformed Nicotiana tabacum, a plant which does not normally contain the tryptophan decarboxylase enzyme, to produce tryptamine. Increased levels of tryptamine in these engineered plants were correlated with decreased whitefly pupae emergence and affected adult selection of leaves for feeding and oviposition in an inverse relationship.

Although Floss stated that it was difficult to generalize about the role that plant development plays in alkaloid biosynthesis, alkaloids found to have defensive characteristics are often found in the younger tissues of most plants as in these last two examples. Some alkaloids have been shown to be elicitable as well as developmentally regulated, such as in Camptotheca acuminata. In this species, tryptophan decarboxylase is regulated by two separate genes, one which appears to be expressed most often in young tissues, the second of which appears to only be expressed in tissues undergoing pathogen stress by fungal elicitors or methyl jasmonate (MeJa) stimulation.

The last role of indolous compounds considered here differs quite dramatically from that of the previous examples. It has been noted that some secondary products have a role in attraction of pollinators, and at least one example of this appears in the indole compounds, indole itself. In some of the Araceae during flowering, calorigen induces an increase in indole production at the same time as an increase in sensible heat in the male area of the flower. The combination of this increase in heat with the volatile nature of indole creates a smell which attracts insects and increases pollination rates.

 

[goatboy]

Evolution does occour. Point mutations producing meaningless variations within a group does happen.

But energy is also very precious. Plants don't generally devote 10% of their energy to producing useless compounds. Either psilocybin performs some mysterious function for the mushroom, or it's being produced for some other reason. If it was useless the energy wouldn't be wasted.

 

[Slaughterhousefive42]

Humans are prone to look at the end result and make inductive assumptions about the cause. Anthropocentricity to the extreme. It just so happens certain chemicals produced by various plants interact in significant ways with our neurochemistry. This leads to people assuming there are stated evolutionary or natural reasons for the plants producing those chemicals. The genetic code is redundant and uses the same basic precursors/proteins/enzymes/chemicals with small varieties across the wide variety of life. Therefore it is quite logical a few plant species produce some chemicals that interact with pertinent receptors like 5HT, DA, NE, CB, GABA, ACh, etc, because all life has common bases and works with the same materials.

If you really want an answer to Why do plants produce alkaloids? Well, there is nitrogenous compounds in the soil and air and water. There are many waste products recycled through endless metabolic pathways, and natural selection ensures constant trial of various pathways to find the most successful path of least resistance.

A better question than "why" would be "how," which can actually be answered scientifically. Asking a general why for all plants is one of those queries which will not bear correct answers, no matter how hard you squeeze the plants.

 

[SeniorShaggy]

just stumbled across this post looking for something totaly differant, but it's an awsome topic and i figured it'd be cool if it got some more input.

in the case of Peyote, i think it may be in the act of deffense, im jsut saying this becasue it tastes terrible, partially as a result of the mescaline, and becasue it has no real spines or other noteable deffensive traits

however i dont think this is the case for the majority of these phycoactive plants/fungi

i once read a theroy that stated that THC was produced in Cannabis for the purpose of attraction. and its a fact that pretty much soley becasue of THC and the other phycoactive cannabiniods cannabis has gone from beeing located almost only in the middle east, to nowdays when it grows in every continet other then Antarctica. thats got to say something
and its not just attractive to people, how many times have you had your cat or dog try to steal your stash?

I also recall comming across something about Jaguars eating a highly intense phycadellic, i think it was iboga, and just rolling around tripping balls. this Along with the well known reindeer eating fly agaric.
Then you ahve the phycoactive milk stories from hindu mythology, were it's belived that the milk was made phycoactive by the animals ingesting phycoactive plants in high enough ammounts to carry though to the milk produced

imo, it's HIGHLY unlikely that these compunds are produced for no reason. If this was true, why would the mutation stick with the plant as it evolved?

As well, Cocaine is produced in higher concentration if its grown at a higher altitude, and i think i remember hearing somewere that the natives would chew coca leaves to help fight the negative effects of beeing at a higher altitude.
Seems kind of too coincidental that a plant only produces this alkaloid that helps counteract altitude sickness in high concentrations if its grown at a high altitude.

just thought it'd be cool if this sucker got some new input, from me and any others who'd like to throw an opinion in

 

[SmokeaJoint]

Cannabis produces THC and its other compounds as a signal of sexual readiness, and the continued trichome production in sinsemilla is a result of forced sexual tension by removing all male plants and pollen. Trichomes aid in helping marijuana pollinate, and very likely serve other functions as well. Other than that, I couldn't tell ya why nautre makes drugs. Maybe Ben Franklin had it right? God made ___ because He loves Man and wanted Man to be happy. (now, his quote had "beer" in the blank, but other entheogenic substances may also apply!)

 

[boiledfruit]

I believe psychedelic compounds are used in nature as communication devices between plants, and plants and humans. We live in a time where we are not connected with nature the way we used to be. These compounds are used to bring us closer to our mother, Earth, where we belong!

 

[Paradisum]

the title of the thread was merely "why do plants produce alkaloids"



honestly i believe that all organisms and their abiotic environment are ment to live in a complete state of symbiotic homeostasis. call me crazy, but i believe plants grow psychoactive agents for us, just as they grow nutrients for us. its a gift. there is no need to question why we are given these gifts when you have experienced them and the wonders they can teach us.

course that doesnt answer the question at all, just some crazy hypothesis i have inthe back of my mind.

so i say that plants produce alkaloids to aid in the photosynthetic process and food storage/energy breakdown process.

QFT. God put them here so they can be used for great healing in the 21st century.