Nett, Ryan, Guan , Xin, Smith, Kevin, Faust, Ann Marie, Sattely, Elizabeth S. and Fischer, Curt R. (2018) D2O labeling to measure active biosynthesis of natural products in medicinal plants. AIChE journal. ISSN 00011541

Abstract

Plant natural products have served as a prominent source of medicines throughout human
history, and are still in use today as clinically-approved pharmaceuticals. However, many of the
medicinal plants that produce useful compounds are slow-growing or recalcitrant to cultivation,
making it difficult to investigate the underlying genetic/enzymatic machinery that is responsible
for biosynthesis. In order to better understand the metabolism of bioactive natural products in
slow-growing, medicinal plants, we used D2O labeling and LC-MS-based metabolomics to
explore the biosynthesis of medically-relevant alkaloids in three different plant species. Our
results show that D2O labeling can be used successfully to determine sites of active alkaloid
biosynthesis over relatively short time scales, thereby providing a basis for future investigations
into the biosynthesis of medicinal natural products.

Item Type:	Article
Date Deposited:	10 Nov 2018 00:45
Last Modified:	10 Nov 2018 00:45
URI:	https://oak.novartis.com/id/eprint/36474