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. Strychnine is a notorious neurotoxic plant alkaloid that has been studied for centuries. A recent report from the O'Connor group has successfully elucidated the biosynthesis of strychnine for the first time using modern transcriptomics and protein expression methods, laying a foundation for future studies to engineer production or modifications of this important natural product.