Plant-derived chemicals called cardenolides have long been used to treat heart disease, and have shown potential as cancer therapies.
Plant-derived chemicals called cardenolides have long been used to treat heart disease, and have shown potential as cancer therapies. But the compounds are very toxic, making it difficult for doctors to prescribe a dose that works without harming the patient.
For decades, researchers have longed to figure out how plants biosynthesize cardenolides, knowledge that could help them discover and develop safer versions of the drugs. Unfortunately, the cardenolides’ best-known plant sources – foxglove and milkweed – are not amenable to experimental techniques for identifying the genes and enzymes that are involved in producing the chemicals.
In a new study published online in eLife on April 7, a multi-institution team led by Boyce Thompson Institute faculty member Georg Jander and Tobias Züst, a research associate at the University of Bern’s Institute of Plant Sciences, showed that Erysimum cheiranthoides (wormseed wallflower) could be used as a model species to elucidate that information. Indeed, the team identified 95 candidate cardenolides, and has begun using the plant to investigate cardenolide biosynthesis.
Read more at Boyce Thompson Institute
Image: Erysimum baeticum, a wallflower from the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain, with visible damage to its leaves caused by local insects. Image credit: Tobias Züst.
