ABSTRACT

Anabaseine (Fig. 1) is an alkaloid isolated from a hoplonemertine worm, Paranemertes peregrina, which uses it to paralyze its prey and avoid being a prey itself (Kem et al. 1971). While anabaseine rather indiscriminately stimulates all nicotinic cholinergic receptors, it displays a particularly high potency upon nicotinic receptors which are most resistant to nico­ tine, namely alpha-bungarotoxin sensitive neuromuscular and neuronal receptors (Kem et al. 1996). Since anabaseine and nicotine contain an identical 3-substituted pyridyl ring, the different receptor subtype prefer­ ences of these two compounds must be determined by differences in the other ring, which is a 2-substituted tetrahydropyridyl in the worm toxin and a 2-substituted N-methyl pyrrolidinyl in the plant compound.