Scientists have shown how plants produce powerful natural chemicals that could help in the production of new medicines in more environmentally friendly ways.
The team focused on a plant called Flueggea suffruticosa
Plants make substances called alkaloids to protect themselves, and humans have long taken advantage of these chemicals, using them in painkillers, treatments for disease and household products such as caffeine and nicotine.
By understanding how plants make these substances, researchers aim to produce new and improved chemicals for medicines more quickly, cheaply and with less environmental impact.
The study at the University of York focused on a plant called Flueggea suffruticosa, which produces a particularly powerful alkaloid known as securinine. While investigating how this chemical is made, scientists discovered that the process is driven by a gene that looks more like it comes from bacteria than from a plant.
Evolutionary 'trick'
The study showed that plants appear to have adopted an evolutionary 'trick' of reusing chemical processing tools commonly found in microbes to defend themselves. This led the team to believe that these useful chemicals were not just seen in some plants, but were likely used in others too.
Dr Benjamin Lichman, from the University of York's Department of Biology, said: "Plants and bacteria are really different forms of life, and so it really was a surprise to see that this significant plant chemical was being driven from a bacterial-like gene.
"We think that this means plants 'recycle' biological tools that are more commonly found in microbes, when they can be useful to them. Even more interesting was that this gene makes securinine in a completely different way from other well-known plant chemicals."
Natural chemicals
Recognising this new process allowed the team to spot similar genes hidden in the DNA of many other plants. The discovery means scientists now have a new way to search for useful natural chemicals, and new tools to make them.
These plant genes could be used to produce valuable compounds in the lab, reducing the need to extract them from rare plants or make them using harsh industrial chemicals.
Dr Lichman said: "Alkaloids can be toxic, so when we use them in medicines they have to be highly controlled and often modified, so understanding the process that goes into making alkaloids can help us develop new methods for producing them in the lab or removing them to make some plants less toxic.
"Now that we know how to look for this chemical production, and that we can find it in more plants than we originally thought, we have new avenues to explore for the production and discovery of safe drugs."
The findings, published in the journal New Phytologist, could also help scientists learn more about how plants grow and survive, potentially leading to hardier crops.
Researchers say the work highlights how much there is still to learn from nature, and how unexpected discoveries in basic plant science can have wide-ranging benefits for medicine, agriculture and the environment.
