Academia Sinica said yesterday that researchers have detailed the structure of an enzyme involved in the production of the scent given off by the mint plant, adding that the research was published in the US journal The Plant Cell on Feb. 5.
In an effort to better understand the process by which the mint plant produces its scent, Academia Sinica vice president Andrew Wang (王惠均) and his team from the Institute of Biological Chemistry (IBC) used x-ray crystallography, as well as biochemical and genetic studies, to map the structure of an enzyme that catalyzes the first critical step in the biosynthesis pathway of the mint scent formation.
MEDICINAL VALUE?
The volatiles that evaporate from plants to produce scent are very important in nature to attract pollinators and herbivorous predators and emit signals that ward off pathogens. They are also of interest to humans as medicines, but very little is known about them.
The group discovered that the enzyme is composed of two proteins — a catalytic protein and a regulatory protein. Through protein-protein interactions, the regulatory protein can remodel the active-site cavity of the catalytic protein for synthesizing the precursor of menthol, which is released from the plant as mint scent.
The research was conducted and financed by Academia Sinica and the protein crystallography synchrotron facility was supported by the National Genomic Medicine Research Program, a project funded by the National Science Council.
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The article, titled “Structure of a Heterotetrameric Geranyl Pyrophosphate Synthase from Mint (Mentha piperita) Reveals Intersubunit Regulation” is available on The Plant Cell Web site at www.plantcell.org/cgi/content/abstract/tpc.109.071738v1.
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