Natural products and bioactive compounds

 

Our research in natural products and bioactive compounds includes:  

 

• elucidation og the biosynthesis and turn-over of selected bioactive natural products (secondary metabolites) in plants
• studies of the assembly of the pathways involved within metabolons
• elucidation of the functional roles of bioactive natural products in plant-herbivore and microbe interactions
• studies of the possible use of bioactive natural products in biomedicine
• determination of the fate of these bioactive compounds in the environment
• designing the crop plants of the future and develop plants into environmentally benign "green factories" by using predicted metabolic engineering.

Studies on cyanogenic glucosides constitute the template for our research, and we investigate biosynthesis, degradation and function of these compounds in an number of plant species including crops like almond, barley, cassava, papaya and sorghum and the model plant Lotus japonicus. In addition we study the arthopod Zygaena which also accumulates cyanogenic glucosides.

 

Other classes of bioactive natural products such as terpenoids, hydroxynitrile glucosides, vanillin and isoflavonoids have been included in our research program.