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Title Gene discovery and metabolic engineering of pharmaceutically active sesquiterpene lactones
Type Presentation
Keywords sesquiterpene lactone, costunolide, biosynthetic pathway
Abstract Sesquiterpene lactones are a major class of plant secondary metabolites. These colourless, bitter, relatively stable, lipophilic molecules are the active constituents of a variety of medicinal plants used in traditional medicine. Here we try to identify genes from the pathway leading to costunolide biosynthesis. A germacrene A synthase and a sesquiterpene synthase oxidase were cloned from a cDNA library from feverfew and characterized by expression in yeast. Activity of the feverfew GAS was compared to that chicory GAS. We report on the products formed and the effect on buffer conditions on product yield
Researchers Harro Bouwmeester (Not In First Six Researchers), Sander van der Krol (Not In First Six Researchers), Jules Beekwilder (Not In First Six Researchers), Ric de Vos (Not In First Six Researchers), Tatsiana Charnikhova (Fifth Researcher), Miriam Goedbloed (Fourth Researcher), Katja Cankar (Third Researcher), Mohammad Majdi (Second Researcher), Qing Liu (First Researcher)