Experts of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences and the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) are contributing to elucidate and reconstitute the complete synthesis of a strong natural antioxidant from rosemary and sage into yeast cells.

A scientific team has reconstructed the carnosic acid synthetic pathway in yeast cells. This is a natural and strong antioxidant found in Mediterranean plants such as rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and sage (Salvia sp.). This study has been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Moreover, the carnosic acid is the biosynthetic precursor of other bioactive molecules such as the tanshinones from Salvia miltiorriza, molecules of biomedical interest for their high anti-tumor activity.

Synthetic routes in the laboratory to protect plant population

Lots of plants are able to synthesize a wide range of secondary metabolites, which are the source of new molecules with pharmacological activity. The intensive exploitation of these resources can risk natural populations of the producing species, therefore it is important to elucidate and reconstitute the metabolic routes able to produce active compounds of pharmacologic interest without threatening natural species -in other organisms.

With this aim, the new study was carried out in the project Plant terpenoids for human health: a chemical and genomic approach to identify and produce bioactive compounds (TERPMED), funded by the European Union and coordinated by Albert Ferrer, professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology of the University of Barcelona, and member of the Center for Research and Agricultural Genomics (CRAG). This work results from the collaboration of the teams of professors Alain Tissier (Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry, Germany); Albert Ferrer and David Manzano (Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the UB and CRAG), and Angelos Kanellis (Aristotile University of Thessaloniki, Greece).

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