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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Quantification of the Potential Impact of Glyphosate-Based Products on Microbiomes
Published on: January 10, 2022
The Site of the Inhibition of the Shikimate Pathway by Glyphosate: II. INTERFERENCE OF GLYPHOSATE WITH CHORISMATE
1Arbeitsgruppe Hormonphysiologie der Pflanzen, Lehrstuhl für Pflanzenphysiologie, Ruhr-Universität, D-4630 Bochum, Federal Republic Germany.
Abstract:
In the presence of the nonselective herbicide glyphosate (N-[phosphonomethyl]glycine), buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) hypocotyls and cultured cells of Galium mollugo L. accumulate an organic acid, which was identified as shikimate by mass-spectroscopy of its methyl ester. After growth in 0.5 millimolar glyphosate for 10 days, G. mollugo cells contained shikimate in amounts of up to 10% of their dry weight. Synthesis of chorismate-derived anthraquinones in G. mollugo was blocked by glyphosate. Chorismate and o-succinylbenzoate (an anthraquinone precursor) alleviated the inhibition. The conclusion drawn from these experiments, that glyphosate inhibits a step in the biosynthetic sequence from shikimate to chorismate, was substantiated by the finding that glyphosate is a powerful inhibitor of the conversion of shikimate to chorismate in cell-free extracts from Aerobacter aerogenes 62-1.
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