title: Metabolic reprogramming of periwinkle plant culture.
abstract: We transformed an alkaloid biosynthetic gene with reengineered substrate specificity into Catharanthus roseus. The resulting transgenic plant cell culture produced a variety of unnatural alkaloid compounds when cocultured with simple, achiral, commercially available precursors that the reengineered enzyme was designed to accept. This work demonstrates the power of genetic engineering to retailor the structures of complex alkaloid natural products in plant culture.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue 18-592, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Weerawat
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Runguphan
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: O'Connor
mesh_terms: D030008:Catharanthus / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D026121:Indole Alkaloids / Q000378:metabolism; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000378:metabolism; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D026121:Indole Alkaloids