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Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Author Spotlight: Discovering New Alkaloids in Plants with Advanced Mass Spectrometry Techniques
Published on: March 8, 2024
Compartmentalization at the interface of primary and alkaloid metabolism
Jacinta L Watkins1, Peter J Facchini1
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
Abstract:
Plants produce many compounds used by humans as medicines, including alkaloids of the benzylisoquinoline (BIA), monoterpene indole (MIA) and tropane classes. The biosynthetic pathways of these pharmaceutical alkaloids are complex and spatially segregated across several tissues, cell-types and organelles. This review discusses the origin of primary metabolic inputs required by these specialized biosynthetic pathways and considers aspects relevant to their spatial organization. These factors are important for alkaloid production both in the native plants and for synthetic biology pathway reconstruction in microorganisms.
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