Reassessing the claimed cytokinin-substituting activity of dehydrodiconiferyl alcohol glucoside

Dehydrodiconiferyl alcohol glucoside (DCG) is a phenylpropanoid-derived plant metabolite with reported cytokinin-substituting and cell-division-promoting activity. Despite its claimed activity, DCG did not trigger morphological changes in Arabidopsis seedlings nor did it alter transcriptional shifts in cell division and cytokinin-responsive genes. In reinvestigating the bioactivity of DCG in its original setting, the previously described stimulation of tobacco callus formation could not be confirmed. No evidence was found that DCG is actually taken up by plant cells, which could explain the absence of any observable activity in the performed experiments. The DCG content in plant tissue increased when feeding explants with the DCG aglycone dehydrodiconiferyl alcohol, which is readily taken up and converted to DCG by plant cells. Despite the increased DCG content, no activity for this metabolite could be demonstrated. Our results therefore demand a reevaluation of the often-quoted cytokinin-substituting and cell-division-promoting activity that has previously been attributed to this metabolite.