Mining raw plant transcriptomic data for new cyclopeptide alkaloids.

In recent years, genome and transcriptome mining have dramatically expanded the rate of discovering diverse natural products from bacteria and fungi. In plants, this approach is often more limited due to the lack of available annotated genomes and transcriptomes combined with a less consistent clustering of biosynthetic genes. The recently identified burpitide class of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) natural products offer a valuable opportunity for bioinformatics-guided discovery in plants due to their short biosynthetic pathways and gene encoded substrates.