Developing plant synthetic biology platforms to elucidate the role of natural products

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Project Summary and Abstract No change to the Project Summary and Abstrasct will be made with the transfer of this award from UC Davis to UC Berkeley. The change in recipient institution is not related to concerns about safety and/or work environments (e.g. due to concerns about harassment, bullying, retaliation, or hostile working conditions) involving the PD/PI. Plants produce a wealth of natural products that have wide-ranging effects on human nutrition, disease, and overall wellbeing. However, because of the complexities of many of these specialized metabolites, we have been limited in our ability to study the effects of individual phytochemicals on human health. Recently, the nascent field of synthetic biology has provided the means to dissect biological systems into their individual components, enabling scientists to reverse engineer and reconstruct their biochemical makeup. This approach has largely been limited to simple organisms (e.g., E. coli and yeast); however, plants provide a unique platform to leverage synthetic biology. My research focuses on introducing design and engineering principles to rationally manipulate plant metabolism in order to investigate the biosynthesis and physiological roles of plant natural products. Edible cruciferous plants (e.g., broccoli, bok choy) have been implicated in cancer prevention, stemming from their diversity of indole glucosinolate derivatives. However, because of the vast diversity of bioactive compounds produced in cruciferous plants, it is challenging to tease apart and pinpoint the specific molecules that may be responsible for a trait as complex as cancer prevention. As a result, many studies have resulted in conflicting findings and tenuous links between glucosinolates and their claimed nutritional benefits. Engineering specific target molecules into novel hosts with no basal biological activity may provide insight and help clarify their role in human health at a molecular level. The development of plant synthetic biology platforms to produce and deliver specific concentrations of target plant natural products will enable future studies to more quantitatively study the claimed benefits and effects of glucosinolates on human health.