Transformation of plants with bacterial halogenases to generate novel bioactive metabolites
Over the last few decades natural products became more important for many areas of medicine, pharmacology and agriculture. Many important antibiotics and anticancer agents are based on natural products. The introduction of a halogen (halogenation) into natural products can improve the bioactivity and bioavailibility. It is already known that the halogenated plant growth hormone 4-chlorindol-3-acetic acid (e.g. synthesized in legumes) shows a higher activity than indol-3-acetic acid. The introduction of a halogen in the metabolism of medically important plants could lead to a variety of novel plant metabolic products with improved properties. A regioselective incorporation of a halogen atom (chloride or bromide) can be achieved by using flavin-dependet halogenases.
In this project three well-known flavin-dependet halogenases have been introduced and overexpressed in Arabidopsis thaliana. We were able to show that tryptophan as well as several other molecules with an indole moiety were halogenated. In addition the effect of the application of chlorinated indol-3-acetic acid on the plant growth of these plants has been analyzed in detail.
Publications:
- Patallo, E., Walter, A., Milbredt, D., Thomas, M., Neumann, M., Caputi, L., O'Connor, S., Ludwig-Müller, J., van Pée, K.-H. (2017) Strategies to produce chlorinated IAA and IAA intermediates. ChemistrySelect 2: 11148-11153
- Walter, A., Caputi, L., O'Connor, S., van Pée, K.-H., Ludwig-Müller, J. (2020) Chlorinated auxins - How does Arabidopsis thaliana deal with them? Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21: 2567
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