How an 'evolutionary playground' brings plant genes together
Plants produce a vast array of natural products, many of which we find useful for making things such as drugs. There are likely to be many other plant natural products that remain undiscovered or under-exploited, and research from The John Innes Centre, which is strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), is uncovering more about the genetics and evolution of natural product pathways in plants. Researchers at JIC have recently discovered that the genes producing two of these products in the model plant Arabidopsis are clustered together, which is extremely rare in plants. An apparent 'evolutionary playground' in the plant's genome seems to have brought the genes together, and knowing how these clusters assemble and are controlled will be important for improving and exploiting the production of new natural products.
