How plants make cocaine
Wednesday, June 6, 2012 - 12:02
in Biology & Nature
Cocaine is one of the most commonly used (and abused) drugs, but we have almost no modern information on how plants produce this complex alkaloid. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have just discovered a key reaction in cocaine formation in the coca plant from South America, and identified the responsible enzyme. This enzyme belongs to the aldo-keto-reductase protein family revealing new insights into the evolution of cocaine biosynthesis.