Vinca(Catharanthus roseus)produces the commercially important indole alkaloids as anticancer agents such as vinblastine and vincristine. Because of their extremely low concentrations, the cost to extract them from cultivated plants is high. Furthermore, their complicated chemical structures discourage chemical synthesis in respect to economic consideration. Vinblastine and vincristine are produced by coupling two different monomeric indole alkaloids, vindoline and catharanthine. The former is accumulated at a relatively high level in the plant, whereas the latter could be produced at considerable lel by plant tissue culture. Thus, it has been considered rational to produce the dimers by coupling vindoline extractable from cultivated plants and catharanthine available from plant tissue cultures. Vindoline was efficiently extracted from the leaves of cultivated plants at 35-70℃ and at 100-300 bar by SFE (supercritical fluid Extraction) using carbon dioxide. The highest vindoline selectivity(63%) out of the extract was obtained at 35℃ and at 100 bar. Catharanthine was chemically extracted from the hairy root cultures by two stage culture using sucrose and fructose. The monomeric precursors vindoline and catharahthine were coupled in the presence of a catalytically effective amount of ferric ion.
