Plants are the source of many important medicinal compounds and the diversity of plant species and biochemistry suggests that many more are potentially available. The current understanding of the formation of plant-derived medicinal compounds at the enzyme, gene and regulatory levels is very incomplete-not a single complex plant medicinal pathway has yet to be completely elucidated at both the enzyme and the regulatory level. Historically, most studies of plant-derived medicinal compounds have been very narrowly focused, typically devoted to very specific steps in a particular biosynthetic pathway. These investigations were often pioneering-the diversity of plant biochemistry contains many novel reactions-but they were also very labor- intensive. More recently, genome-wide studies of model plant species have resulted in an explosive increase in our knowledge of, and capacity to understand, basic biological processes. Working from the genetics to the biochemistry now provides the most efficient way to build a long awaited and urgently needed foundation for more effectively probing and exploiting plant medicinal compound biosynthetic pathways. Having a comprehensive medicinal plant transcriptome database would propel medicinal plant species from an orphan- like status into the limelight of plant biochemistry and molecular genetics. The long-term goal of this research is for the scientific community to understand the complete formation, storage and regulation of plant-derived medicinal compounds at the enzyme and gene level. Improved understanding will enable the development of alternate sources of known pharmaceuticals and of novel drugs. The objective of this proposal is to provide the research community with urgently needed infrastructure and resources to enable comprehensive studies of the most compelling and medicinally significant plant biosynthetic pathways.
Its Specific Aims are 1) To validate carefully selected medicinal plants based on taxonomic classification, medicinal compound accumulation and target transcript analysis, 2) To conduct transcriptome profiling of these medicinal plants and 3) To disseminate the accumulated data to the scientific community in the form of a user-friendly database. The resultant database and tools for comparative analysis will lead to gene discovery and enable technologies in the broader medicinal plant field. It is expected that the entire field of plant-derived pharmaceuticals will be advanced to a higher, more comprehensive level of analysis as a result of the proposed research. This is significant because the results will provide researchers in the field of plant-derived pharmaceuticals with a publicly available database and search tools for comparative analyses of pathway enzyme-coding genes and regulatory factors. These tools will enable gene discovery, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology and directed evolution for the improved production of drugs and for the development of novel drugs. Taken together, we envisage that this will ultimately result in tangible long-term and meaningful benefits for public health.
This research is directed toward understanding the various regulatory and biochemical factors that control medicinal compound formation, transport and storage in medicinal plants. Success in this area offers the promise of providing less expensive and/or novel medicinals that could positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
