Large Scale Purification of Castanospermine

Castanospermine is an alkaloid produced by the Castanospermum australe tree and is enriched in its seeds. Castanospermine is an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor which inhibits glycoprotein processing in mammalian cells by preventing removal of 3-glucose residues linked to a high mannose core structure. This activity of castanospermine has an antiviral effect on many viruses given that many viruses have coat glycoproteins. It has been shown that in many instances misfolded proteins lacking activity occur with castanospermine treatment, thus, castanospermine is apotential anti-viral therapeutic.

The method of the invention is a scalable, large-scale castanospermine preparation method from castanospermine-containing plant sources such as Castanospermum austral seed material. The preparation method differs in significant ways from methods for small-scale analytical isolation of castanospermine and is capable of yielding levels of purity greater than 98%.