Melatonin (And friends, some more savory than others)
14th July 2006
Just about anyone who’s ever been in a GNC knows melatonin by now. People know it best as a sleep aid. However, it is responsible for a diverse range of biological processes, and you might be surprised to know that it is a sufficiently ancient compound that it seems to be found in quite a wide range of species.
I’m sufficiently far-removed from anything even close melatonin research (and it’s sufficiently well investigated) that I can’t really comment further on biological activity than that. It makes its way into the popular press often because of the obvious lay interest. The neat tidbit I have for you today is this: melatonin comes from a class of compounds called the tryptamines. The biosynthesis of tryptamines usually proceeds from the structurally related amino acid tryptophan.
The tryptamine nucleus is found in such diverse compounds as the neurotransmitter serotonin, the active alkaloid psilocybin from hallucinogenic mushrooms, and folded into the structure of LSD.
Coincidentally, tryptamines are some of the most thoroughly researched drugs of less-than-legitimate status. A PhD-level synthetic chemist who left a (quite successful, from what I’ve read) industrial research career to fiddle with psychoactive drugs, Alexander Shulgin, has literally been puttering with these since the sixties. He published his results - of both his syntheses (most had never been created before) and his qualitative accounts of self-administration of his homemade pharmaceuticals. He also investigated another class of alkaloids, the phenethylamines.
Have a good weekend.