title: Global cyclotide adventure: a journey dedicated to the discovery of circular peptides from flowering plants.
abstract: Circular peptides and proteins of great number and diversity have been discovered in bacteria, plants, and animals. Cyclotides--disulfide-knotted and head-to-tail cyclized plant peptides that exhibit various bioactivities--are by far the largest group of circular proteins. Since their first discovery over three decades ago, there has been a lot of progress in the elucidation of structural characteristics and applications of cyclotides as novel peptide drug grafting frameworks, but there is a lack of information about their native occurrence in various plant families. The "global cyclotide adventure" was initiated as a plant collection and analysis project to advance our understanding of the origin and distribution of cyclotides in flowering plants. Here, I will provide a chronological overview of the preparation of this project, including background information on plant taxonomy and morphology, summarize, and comment on the recent progress about the discovery of cyclotide-producing plants and will give an outlook on the future of cyclotide analysis and further discoveries to be made.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. christian.gruber@univie.ac.at
authors.forename: Christian W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Gruber
mesh_terms: D047169:Cyclotides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010802:Phylogeny; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D019666:Rubiaceae / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification
chemical_list: D047169:Cyclotides; D010940:Plant Proteins