Transgenic plants against malaria
Wormwood has been taught to produce more medicine
Anna Stavina, XX2 century, based on the materials of the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics: Transgenic plants against malaria
For more than 2000 years, annual wormwood (Latin Artemisia annua) has been used in China for the treatment of intermittent fever. In 2015, Yu Tu, a doctor from China, a specialist in folk medicine, was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of artemisinin, a biologically active compound contained in wormwood and effective against malaria-causing parasites. Now drugs based on artemisinin are considered the main – and most effective – remedy for malaria. In addition, such drugs help with other parasitic diseases. Artemisinin is also believed to have antitumor potential.
However, obtaining artemisinin is associated with one difficulty. Wormwood produces little of it. There is a technology for the chemical synthesis of artemisinin, but its use significantly increases the cost of drugs based on the resulting compound.
An international group of scientists was created to solve this problem. It included specialists from the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics) and Sequentia Biotech S.L. Scientists managed to genetically modify wormwood in such a way that the plant began to synthesize twice as much artemisinin. The results of the work were published in the publication The Plant Journal (Matías-Hernández et al., AaMYB1 and its orthologue AtMYB61 affect terpene metabolism and trichome development in Artemisia annua and Arabidopsis thaliana – VM).
In the course of their work, the researchers identified a gene associated simultaneously with the formation of trichomes – outgrowths on the surface of the plant – and the synthesis of terpenes in them, in particular, artemisinin.
A. annua sheet under scanning electron microscope.
Rounded formations are glandular trichomes that produce artemisinin
"By controlling the AaMYB1 gene, we were able to derive a modified wormwood that produces twice as much artemisinin as the usual one," says lead author Soraya Pelaz from the Center for Agronomic Genomics Research. Presumably, this development will play an important role in reducing the cost of drugs containing artemisinin. This is especially important because 90% of malaria cases and 92% of deaths from this disease occur in Central Africa, a low-income region.
Luis Mathias-Hernandez and Soraya Pelaz observe the growth of wormwood in the greenhouse
Genes similar to AaMYB1 have already been found by the authors of the study in another plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Tal's rhesus). Many herbs synthesize terpenes useful for humans in trichomes. For example, mint produces menthol, and thyme produces thymol. In the future, thanks to the results of the new work, genetically modified versions of these plants may appear, synthesizing more terpenes than their wild relatives.
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29.03.2017