The opium poppy genome and morphinan production.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30166436.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.aat4096.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Morphinan-based painkillers are derived from opium poppy (<i>Papaver somniferum</i> L.). We report a draft of the opium poppy genome, with 2.72 gigabases assembled into 11 chromosomes with contig N50 and scaffold N50 of 1.77 and 204 megabases, respectively. Synteny analysis suggests a whole-genome duplication at ~7.8 million years ago and ancient segmental or whole-genome duplication(s) that occurred before the Papaveraceae-Ranunculaceae divergence 110 million years ago. Syntenic blocks representative of phthalideisoquinoline and morphinan components of a benzylisoquinoline alkaloid cluster of 15 genes provide insight into how this cluster evolved. Paralog analysis identified P450 and oxidoreductase genes that combined to form the <i>STORR</i> gene fusion essential for morphinan biosynthesis in opium poppy. Thus, gene duplication, rearrangement, and fusion events have led to evolution of specialized metabolic products in opium poppy.
Medical subject headings
- Benzylisoquinolines
- Evolution, Molecular
- Gene Duplication
- Genome, Plant
- Morphinans
- Papaver