LC-MS sheds light on poppy alkaloid metabolism

The alkaloid metabolism process that takes place in opium poppy cell cultures has been studied using liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS).

Writing in BMC Plant Biology, a team from the University of Calgary and National Research Council Plant Biotechnology Institute explain that a number of pharmaceutical solutions - including codeine and morphine - are derived from the flower.

Employing LC-MS, they analysed protein extracts within cell cultures that had been treated using a fungal elicitor.

In all, 1,004 proteins were identified, after having first been fractionated through one-dimensional gel electrophoresis and subsequently digested with trypsin.

After compiling an opium poppy-specific expressed sequence tag database, the scientists were able to substantially enhance the identification of peptides, with eight in ten known sanguinarine biosynthetic enzymes represented in the information set.

BMC Plant Biology is an open-access publication which periodically updates on the latest findings relating to plants at the cellular, molecular, tissue and organism levels.