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Genetically engineered yeast makes medicinal plant products

Yeast has been engineered to convert simple sugars and amino acids into drugs that inhibit a neurotransmitter molecule. The work marks a step towards making the production of these drugs more reliable and sustainable.
  1. José Montaño López

    1. José Montaño López is in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.

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  2. José L. Avalos

    1. José L. Avalos is in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA, and in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, the Department of Molecular Biology and the Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University.

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In Homer’s Odyssey, the sorceress Circe slipped Odysseus’ companions a poison to induce amnesia and hallucinations. Scientists have speculated1 that Circe’s concoction contained the plant jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), which is rich in drugs called tropane alkaloids that are used to treat asthma, influenza symptoms and pain, and that can induce hallucinogenic and other psychotropic effects. Tropane alkaloids, like most other plant natural products, are still typically extracted from natural sources, but this approach has many pitfalls. For instance, vulnerability to weather and market fluctuations can limit access for both patients and researchers, and extraction can be environmentally harmful2,3. In addition, plants typically contain very low levels of these active ingredients. Writing in Nature, Srinivasan and Smolke4 report an alternative way to make tropane alkaloids that could relieve these limitations — using engineered strains of the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

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Nature 585, 504-505 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02461-8

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