Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Advances in Traditional Medicine https://doi.org/10.1007/s13596-019-00419-4 REVIEW Pyrrolidine alkaloids and their promises in pharmacotherapy Muhammad Torequl Islam 1,2  · Mohammad Suleiman Mubarak 3 Received: 15 September 2018 / Accepted: 29 November 2019 © Institute of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University 2020 Abstract This review aimed at summarizing the literature pertaining to the biological activities of pyrrolidine alkaloids and their derivatives obtained from various sources. For this purpose, an up-to-date search was made in various databases such as PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, The American Chemical Society and Google Scholar. Findings suggest that to date, a number of pyrrolidine alkaloids have been shown to possess several important biological activities, including antioxidant, anti-infammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic and anthelmintic, anticancer, anti-hyperglycemic, organ protective, and neuropharmacological activities. Additionally, some alkaloids have been identifed to exert toxic efects on the animal organs. Among these alkaloids, bgugaine and irniine are known to cause renal injuries, whereas nicotine and cocaine have been confrmed to cause neurotoxicity in experimental animals. Furthermore, pyrrolidine alkaloids can be some of the best sources of pharmacologically active lead compounds. Keywords Alkaloids · Pyrrolidine · Plant-derived · Microorganisms · Pharmacological efects Introduction The term ‘alkaloids’, introduced in 1819 by the German chemist Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Meißner, refers to a group of basic naturally occurring nitrogen-containing compounds produced by a large variety of organisms, including bac- teria, fungi, plants, and animals. Alkaloids exhibit a wide range of pharmacological activities including antioxidant (Li et al. 2018), antimalarial (Cheenpracha et al. 2017), anti- infammatory and anti-asthmatic (Ahn et al. 2017), antican- cer (Girma et al. 2018), cholinomimetic (Lu et al. 2018), vasodilatory (Van Crombruggen et al. 2011), antiarrhythmic (Kiss et al. 2017), analgesic (Ali Khan et al. 2018), antimi- crobial (de Avila et al. 2018), anti-hyperglycemic (D’Alonzo et al. 2017), neurological (Zhang et al. 2018), among other things. Consequently, alkaloids constitute an important group of secondary metabolites which can be employed in traditional and modern medicine, or can be used as leads for drug discovery and development. Pyrrolidine alkaloids possess a fve-membered nitrogen- containing ring. This group of compounds has not been fully investigated, although numerous important alkaloids of this class have been recognized for their promising biological efects. In a recent study, β-lactam substituted polycyclic fused pyrrolidine alkaloids have been shown to possess signifcant anti-bacterial activity in Enterococcus faeca- lis-infected mice (Meiyazhagan et al. 2015). An excellent review dealing with the chemistry and biological importance of pyrrolidinone alkaloids has been recently published (Hos- seinzadeh et al. 2017). Most of the pyrrolidine alkaloids are known for their neurological efects. In this context, Katavic et al. (2007) introduced two opioid receptor binding pyrro- lidine alkaloids; Habbemines A and B. In a similar fashion, Nicotine, one of the most important pyridine-pyrrolidine alkaloid is another example of a neuroactive alkaloid (Tang and Kiyatkin 2011). Owing to the importance of pyrrolidine alkaloids, this review focuses on the present knowledge about its biological efects. Diferent databases such as PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, The American Chemical Society and Google Scholar have been employed to obtain recent * Muhammad Torequl Islam muhammad.torequl.islam@tdtu.edu.vn 1 Department for Management of Science and Technology Development, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam 2 Faculty of Pharmacy, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam 3 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan