Plant tropane alkaloid biosynthesis evolved independently in the Solanaceae and Erythroxylaceae.

ABSTRACT: The pharmacologically important tropane alkaloids have a scattered distribution among angiosperm families, like many other groups of secondary metabolites. To determine whether tropane alkaloids have evolved repeatedly in different lineages or arise from an ancestral pathway that has been lost in most lines, we investigated the tropinone-reduction step of their biosynthesis. In species of the Solanaceae, which produce compounds such as atropine and scopolamine, this reaction is known to be catalyzed by enzymes of the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase family. However, in Erythroxylum coca (Erythroxylaceae), which accumulates cocaine and other tropane alkaloids, no proteins of the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase family were found that could catalyze this reaction. Instead, purification

SUBMITTER: Jirschitzka J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3387132 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature