Metabolic enzymes in the opium poppy that play widespread roles in enabling the plant to make painkilling morphine and other important compounds, discover a University of Calgary scientists.
Opium Use Starts in the Cardle for Some Afghan People
In a grubby courtyard outside a simple two-room house in northern Afghanistan, six women are working on a single large carpet.
In a grubby courtyard outside a simple two-room house in northern Afghanistan, six women are working on a single large carpet.
"The functions of what we thought were really specific genes and enzymes involved in morphine biosynthesis are actually much broader," says Facchini, professor of biological sciences in the Faculty of Science and an internationally recognized expert on the opium poppy.
In 2010, Facchini's laboratory reported the discovery of two unique genes, and the enzymes they encode, that enable the opium poppy to synthesize morphine and codeine.
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The new finding shows that these enzymes in opium poppy, along with a third enzyme discovered by the U of C lab, "have these unexpected and widespread roles," Facchini says.
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The new insights could enable pharmaceutical companies to manipulate the biochemical pathway and create varieties of the opium poppy that produce higher levels of specific drugs, such as codeine or morphine, Facchini says.
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Opium Harvest in Afghanistan Drops by a Third
Opium production in Afghanistan has fallen by a third, says a report by the United Nations.
Opium production in Afghanistan has fallen by a third, says a report by the United Nations.
Codeine can be extracted directly from the opium poppy, although most of the painkiller is chemically synthesized from the much more abundant morphine found in the plant.
Canadians spend more than $100 million a year on codeine-containing pharmaceutical products and are among the world's top consumers of the drug per capita.
Facchini and Farrow suspect that the biochemical reactions they discovered also occur in garden-variety poppy species related to the opium poppy, as well as in other plants.
"The difference between related plants, in terms of their ability to make or not make morphine, might only be the activity of a single enzyme," Facchini notes.
Source-Eurekalert
