Biosynthesis of the Plant‐Produced Toxin Strychnine Elucidated

Abstract While natural products isolated from plants have historically been an important source of bioactive molecules, elucidating their biosynthetic pathways has remained a challenging process. Strychnine is the one such compound known for its neurotoxicity and use as a rodent pesticide. Considerable interest has been shown in the synthesis of strychnine for many decades, yet little was known about its biosynthesis. A recent report from the O'Connor lab has solved this long‐standing puzzle using modern transcriptomics and transient expression approaches to uncover each enzyme responsible for the production of strychnine along with an unexpected final non‐enzymatic step.