Cytochrome P450 reductases from poppy plants

Abstract

The present invention relates to production of alkaloids from poppy plants and in particular togenes encoding enzymes in the alkaloid pathway, to proteins encoded by the gens, to plants transformed or transfected with the genes and to methods of altering alkaloid content or blend of poppy plants.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to production of alkaloids from poppy plants and in particular to genes encoding enzymes in the alkaloid pathway, to proteins encoded by the genes, to plants transformed or transfected with the genes and to methods of altering alkaloid content or blend of poppy plants. INTRODUCTION [0002] The opium poppy Papaver somniferum is grown under strict government control, for the production of medically useful alkaloids such as morphine and codeine. The alkaloid content of poppy straw (includes threshed poppy capsules) is the most important parameter in the efficiency of opium alkaloid production. There have been numerous attempts to increase the yield of alkaloid per ton of poppy material. The vast majority of approaches focus on improving agricultural practices and on established methods of conventional breeding in the attempt to increase cultivation efficiencies and to modifying the genotype of the opium poppy plants. [0003] In additio...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] It has now been found that among the rate-limiting steps in the production of morphine in Papaver somniferum are the steps which depend on the cytochrome P-450 enzymes, and therefore in turn on the cytochrome P-450 reductases. This observation has led to the identification and isolation of cytochrome P-450 reductase enzymes in the alkaloid poppy, the isolation and characterisation of polynucleotides encoding the reductase enzymes, the expression of the polynucleotides encoding the reductases in eukaryotic and prokaryotic expression systems, including plant cells and transfected or transformed plants. The identification of cytochrome P-450 reductase genes and their products in poppy plants now enables methods of controlling the total alkaloid content of a plant, the ultimate “mix” of alkaloids as well as the type of predominant alkaloid synthesised by the plant. This can be achieved by alleviating the “bottlenecks” in the pathway through overexpression of the relevant reductase genes in plants transformed or transfected with a nucleotide sequence encoding an appropriate P-450 reductase enzyme.

Problems solved by technology

There are also thought to be a number of rate limiting steps (“bottlenecks”) where limitations in the availability of either substrates, co-factors or certain enzymes, determine which particular branch of the synthetic pathway is favoured and therefore the ultimate “mix” of alkaloids and the type of alkaloid which is predominantly in the plant.

This imbalance may be a regulatory step for the reduction and therefore be rate-limiting of the cytochrome P450 activity.

Although there is some promiscuity within species, available data suggests that there is poor transferability of reductases from diverged species.

Notwithstanding this body of work, to date it has not been possible to establish the exact nature of the “bottlenecks” in the alkaloid metabolism pathway or to identify the key enzymes which may be responsible and which could be used to manipulate alkaloid metabolism in the opium poppy in order to achieve higher yields of alkaloids generally, and specific alkaloids in particular.

In fact, it is possible that any increase in the yield of straw may result in the relative content of alkaloid decreasing through dilution.

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