Message: file_get_contents(https://...@gmail.com&api_key=61f08fa0b96a73de8c900d749fcb997acc09): Failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
1] Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada H4B 1R6 [2] Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada H4B 1R6.
Published: October 2015
AI Article Synopsis
* Scientists found a way to make these chemicals using yeast, which can be easier than getting them from plants.
* This study shows that they successfully created a long pathway in yeast to produce specific BIAs, including some that haven’t been seen in plants before! *
Article Abstract
Benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) represent a large class of plant secondary metabolites, including pharmaceuticals such as morphine, codeine and their derivatives. Large-scale production of BIA-based pharmaceuticals is limited to extraction and derivatization of alkaloids that accumulate in planta. Synthesis of BIAs in microbial hosts could bypass such limitations and transform both industrial production of BIAs with recognized value and research into uncharacterized BIAs. Here we reconstitute a 10-gene plant pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae that allows for the production of dihydrosanguinarine and its oxidized derivative sanguinarine from (R,S)-norlaudanosoline. Synthesis of dihydrosanguinarine also yields the side-products N-methylscoulerine and N-methylcheilanthifoline, the latter of which has not been detected in plants. This work represents the longest reconstituted alkaloid pathway ever assembled in yeast and demonstrates the feasibility of the production of high-value alkaloids in microbial systems.
