Two deadly flowers could inspire powerful new medicines
Scientists have figured out how two famously poisonous plants create chemicals with surprising medical potential. After tracking thousands of genes in wolfsbane and larkspur, they identified six enzymes needed to build a complex compound called atisinium. The team recreated the process inside tobacco plants, offering a sustainable way to produce and test these rare molecules in larger amounts.
Two poisonous plants, wolfsbane and larkspur, may hold the key to creating new medicines for pain, malaria, cancer and agricultural pests. Scientists from Michigan State University and the Czech Academy of Sciences identified a method to replicate part of the plants' chemistry in a laboratory. The study, published in Molecular Plant, could lead to sustainable treatments derived from natural products.
These plants have been used in medicine for millennia, but their intricate chemical compositions make them difficult to work with. By studying the plants, researchers discovered a way to create the compounds using tobacco plants as a biofactory. This breakthrough could lead to the development of new drugs inspired by these natural substances.
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