Plant Defense as a Biotech Tool

acib-researcher Elisa Lanfranchi searching for fern probes in the woods. acib

Defense strategies are not only important in chess or military tactics but also in nature. Especially plants are masters in this discipline. Some stone fruit, almond trees or even ferns defend their young buds against feeding pests with cyanide.

The poison expels the greatest enemy. This is due to an enzyme called hydroxynitrile lyase (HNL), which can release molecularly stored hydrogen cyanide.

What is useful for the plants, is also in demand in industry where the reverse reaction of the HNL-enzymes allows to bind cyanide to different molecules. This creates a double benefit. On the one hand, it is possible to recycle unwanted cyanide wastes, which for example are generated during the production of acrylonitrile.

Acrylonitrile is not only used in adhesives, it is also the raw material for polyacrylonitrile or “acrylic”, an important fiber for textiles. On the other hand, industry gains valuable building blocks for pharmaceutical agents or the vitamin synthesis. The extremely high specificity of the HNL-enzymes makes them so useful for industrial application. Ideally, through biocatalysis valuable products are derived from inexpensive precursors.

HNL-enzymes have a fine tradition in industry. The first HNL enzymes have been successfully developed in the mid-1990s at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) and were used industrially for the production of insect repellents.

Important improvements in the synthesis of high-value products aroused more industrial interest. The early enzymes certainly can’t meet all of today’s requirements, so researchers are searching for new HNL biocatalysts. Within the framework of the EU project KYROBIO, which deals with production technologies for new molecules, acib-researchers have successfully looked for those bio-tools.

SMELL ENZYME ACTIVITY

The acib-researchers Margit Winkler, Elisa Lanfranchi and Anton Glieder finally made a find in the white rabbit's foot fern, where the scientists sniffed enzyme activity. “When you rub a young fern leave between the fingers, it smells of hydrocyanic acid and benzaldehyde (similar to marzipan), indicating that there is enzyme activity”, explains Margit Winkler, “knowing that ferns show the desired activity, we have been searching in the woods and in commercially available plants”.

In three and a half years the acib-researchers in Graz have kept a close eye on eligible enzymes, examined their structure, produced the biocatalysts biotechnologically and tested their activity. Finally, the enzymes of a commercial rabbit’s-foot fern from the hardware store were the most promising. The Styrian bracken fern also showed activity and is currently being studied in more detail.

The new enzyme has an extremely high activity, although it is not even optimized. “Our new HNL is more efficient and simpler to handle than those previously used, because it is a small, uncomplicated enzyme”, says Anton Glieder (TU Graz, acib). These results are a perfect basis for the industrial utilization. The range of applications is huge: It includes everything from crop protection to the production of repellents against mosquitoes and Co.

The acib-method used for bioprospecting of enzyme activities was published in the “Current Biotechnology” journal recently: http://goo.gl/6ZAWqt

About acib
The Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib) is an international research centre for industrial biotechnology with locations in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Tulln, Hamburg and Bielefeld (D), Pavia (I), Barcelona (E) and Rzeszow (P). acib sees itself as a scientific and industrial network of 130+ partners, including 3M, Biomin, Boehringer Ingelheim RCV, DSM, DPx, Lonza, Sandoz or VTU Technology.
At acib, 200+ employees work on more than 70 research projects with the final goal to replace conventional industrial processes and products by more environmentally friendly and more economical approaches.
acib is owned by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Graz University of Technology, the Universities of Innsbruck and Graz and the Styrian Joanneum Research. acib is financed by industrial and public contributions. The latter come from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency of the Republic of Austria (FFG), Standortagentur Tirol, Styrian Business Promotion Agency (SFG), the province of Lower Austria and the Vienna Business Agency.

Further Inquiry:
DI Dr. Margit Winkler, acib, +43 316 873 9333, margit.winkler@acib.at
DI Thomas Stanzer MA, public relations/acib, +43 316 873 9312, thomas.stanzer@acib.at

http://www.acib.at
http://goo.gl/6ZAWqt

Media Contact

Thomas Stanzer idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors