I am preparing to go to Seattle tomorrow to visit the Allen Institute again! Tonight I watched Ronja Friedhoff from the Technische Universitat Braunschweig in Germany present at London Calling 2024. The title of the session is “Accessing the biosynthetic gene repertoire of medicinal plants.” Friedhoff started by asking, “What secrets are hidden in plant genomes?” They are interested in plant metabolites that can be beneficial for human health. The workflow starts with DNA extraction from plants. They incubate the plant in darkness for a few days and then grind leaves for non-destructive sampling. They perform DNA extraction and short-read elimination. With high-quality DNA, they can prepare libraries and obtain 30-40x coverage. Once the assembly is completed, they perform structural annotation and often use transcriptomic data. One plant called foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, is ornamental and poisonous. The research team was initerested in the cardioactive glycosides. These compounds are of interest because they can increase cardiac output. The group was able to find several genes in the pathway. The next plant Friedhoff spoke about was Tropaeolum majus, nasturtium. The team was able to identify several transferases of medical relevance. Urtica dioica, stinging nettle, was sequenced during a class! This plant is used as a diuretic and for joint pain. The class was able to identify genes in the proanthocyanidin biosynthesis pathway. Withania somnifera produces withanolides that have potential cancer therapeutic uses. The team sequenced the plant and performed comparative genomics. The team identified many genes responsible for the production of withanolides, including duplication events. This session was so interesting, as I thought it highlighted how plant genome sequencing can be used to teach about genomics, plant metabolites, and bioinformatics.
