Biosynthesis of the Plant-Produced Toxin Strychnine Elucidated

While natural products isolated from plants have historically been an important source of bioactive molecules, elucidating their biosynthetic pathways has remained a challenging process. Strychnine is the one such compound known for its neurotoxicity and use as a rodent pesticide. Considerable interest has been shown in the synthesis of strychnine for many decades, yet little was known about its biosynthesis. A recent report from the O'Connor lab has solved this long-standing puzzle using modern transcriptomics and transient expression approaches to uncover each enzyme responsible for the production of strychnine along with an unexpected final non-enzymatic step.