Deadly plant chemistry recreated inside tobacco plants
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- Michigan State University and Czech Academy of Sciences researchers identified six enzymes that wolfsbane and larkspur use to produce atisinium, a complex diterpenoid alkaloid, after tracking thousands of genes across both plant species.
- The team transferred the identified genes into tobacco plants, which successfully assembled atisinium — including an unexpected nitrogen addition the researchers had not predicted — turning the tobacco into a living biofactory.
- Diterpenoid alkaloids such as aconitine have been known for nearly 200 years but have never been successfully synthesized in a laboratory, making the new pathway a long-sought starting point for the broader compound family.
- The findings, published in the journal Molecular Plant, point to possible applications against pain, malaria, cancer, and agricultural pests — uses consistent with these plants' thousands of years of traditional medicinal history.
- Co-first authors Garret Miller (now an assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Flint) and Lana Mutabdžija joined forces with study author Björn Hamberger after a chance meeting at a scientific conference in Barcelona.
Why it matters: Plants produce these complex alkaloids in vanishingly small quantities, and closely related compounds like aconitine have resisted lab synthesis for nearly 200 years. By transplanting the enzyme chain into tobacco, researchers give drug developers a scalable route to study — and eventually test — molecules with potential against pain, malaria, cancer, and agricultural pests without harvesting the original poisonous plants.
