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Glucosinolate engineering identifies a γ-glutamyl peptidase

Nature Chemical Biology volume 5, pages 575–577 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Consumption of cruciferous vegetables is associated with reduced risk of developing cancer, a phenomenon attributed to glucosinolates, which are characteristic of these vegetables. We report production of the bioactive benzylglucosinolate in the noncruciferous plant Nicotiana benthamiana through metabolic engineering. The study includes identification of γ-glutamyl peptidase 1 (GGP1), which substantially increased glucosinolate production by metabolizing an accumulating glutathione conjugate, an activity not previously described for glucosinolate biosynthesis or for proteins containing glutamine amidotransferase domains.

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Figure 1: Production of BGLS in N. benthamiana upon cotransformation with ORF1 and ORF2.
Figure 2: GGP1 increases BGLS production by metabolizing GS-B.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Danish International Developmental Agency for a PhD stipend to F.G.-F. (DANIDA project no. 91175) and the Villum Kann Rasmussen Fond for its support to the VKR Research Centre for Pro-Active Plants. We also thank Novozymes for the Novo Scholarship to M.T.N. and M.E.M.

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Author notes

  1. Fernando Geu-Flores and Morten Thrane Nielsen: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Biology, Plant Biochemistry Laboratory, Faculty of Life Sciences, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Fernando Geu-Flores, Morten Thrane Nielsen, Majse Nafisi, Morten Emil Møldrup, Mohammed Saddik Motawia & Barbara Ann Halkier

  2. Department of Plant Biology, VKR Research Centre for Pro-Active Plants, Faculty of Life Sciences, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Fernando Geu-Flores, Morten Thrane Nielsen, Majse Nafisi, Morten Emil Møldrup, Carl Erik Olsen, Mohammed Saddik Motawia & Barbara Ann Halkier

  3. Department of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Carl Erik Olsen

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Contributions

F.G.-F. and B.A.H. formulated the project; M.T.N. and M.E.M. performed experiments in N. benthamiana; F.G.-F. and M.N. expressed GGP1 in E. coli and performed kinetic measurements; M.S.M. synthesized GS-B; C.E.O. performed LC-MS analysis; F.G.-F. and M.T.N. analyzed the data; F.G.-F., M.T.N. and B.A.H. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara Ann Halkier.

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Competing interests

The heterologous production of glucosinolates is the subject of a PCT patent application filed 27 February 2009 (PCT/IB2009/000500).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–3, Supplementary Scheme 1 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 309 kb)

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Geu-Flores, F., Nielsen, M., Nafisi, M. et al. Glucosinolate engineering identifies a γ-glutamyl peptidase. Nat Chem Biol 5, 575–577 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.185

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