Melezitose is a nonreducing trisaccharide sugar that is produced by many plant sap-eating insects, including aphids such as Cinara pilicornis. Melezitose is beneficial to the insects, as it reduces the stress of osmosis by reducing their own water potential. The melezitose is part of the honeydew which acts as an attractant for ants and also as a food for bees. Melezitose fatty acid monoesters are potential surfactants, that may solubilize hydrophobic drugs for parenteral formulations.

Veratridine (VTD), an alkaloid derived from the Liliaceae plant shows anti-tumor effects. Veratridine is also an agent that opens voltage dependent Na+ channels, blocks Na+ channel activation, and induces Ca2+ influx. The compound has been observed to be an alkaloid neurotoxin used to amplify sodium permeability. Studies report that Veratridine can trigger exocytosis and induce Ca2+ oscillations. Furthermore, Veratridine has been shown to effect the mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes, induce release of noradrenaline, and increase superoxide anion production. Veratridine competes with BTX binding in a mutually exclusive manner. However, the pharmacological effects of veratridine on Na+ channels are quite different from those of BTX. First, veratridine reduces the single Na+ channel conductance drastically whereas BTX does not. Veratridine therefore is regarded as a partial agonist and BTX as a full agonist of Na+ channels. Second, under voltage clamp conditions BTX binds practically irreversibly to Na+ channels whereas veratridine readily dissociates from its binding site. Both of these drugs, however, bind preferentially to the open state of Na+ channels. The BTX resistant Na+ channels in Phyllobates frogs remain sensitive to veratridine. The ceveratrum alkaloids, including Veratridine, have a characteristic hypotensive effect not directly involving the CNS. They slow the heart and lower arterial blood pressure by reflexly stimulating medullary vasomotor centers without decreasing cardiac output (Bezold–Jarisch effect). These agents were introduced in the 1950s as antihypertensive agents; however, they were found to have a narrow therapeutic index and their use was discontinued.

Cucurbitacin D is a plant steroid with anticancer activity. Cucurbitacin D treatment of cervical cancer cells arrested the cell cycle in G1/S phase, inhibited constitutive expression of E6, Cyclin D1, CDK4, pRb, and Rb and induced the protein levels of p21 and p27. Cucurbitacin D also inhibited phosphorylation of STAT3 at Ser727 and Tyr705 residues as well as its downstream target genes c-Myc, and MMP9. In addition, Cucurbitacin D could be used as a useful compound to treat adriamycin-resistant patients with breast carcinoma.