ABSTRACT
Fagara zanthoxyloides is a good example to illustrate the interest of a typical medicinal plant of the African pharmacopeae. Searching for a new active molecule on blood cell differentiation, Pr Leopold Comoë (deceased) focussed on this plant due to the isolation of an antileukemic alkaloid from its roots as also its properties to intercalate with DNA. He pointed out that fagaronine was in effect an efficient molecule for the differentiation of human erythroleukemic cell lines with a high inhibition of cell growth (Comoë et a l, 19Ş7). Due to the difficult obtention of fagaronine using plant root extraction or chemical synthesis, plant and tissue cultures of Fagara zanthoxyloides have been investigated in order to study the biosynthesis, the production of the potent antileukemic molecule in vitro and to explain its original activity. This chapter complements our precedent chapter on the in vitro studies (Couillerot et al., 1999) and presents our recent work on the explanation of the mechanisms by which fagaronine induces the differentiation of human erythroleukemic cells.
