Opium Poppy Genomics & BIA Pathway Discovery

For over two centuries, the metabolic complexity of medicinal benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs), such as morphine and noscapine, has challenged plant biochemistry. Our work with the pharmaceutical industry (GlaxoSmithKline and Sun Pharmaceuticals) over the last twenty years has led to the discovery of genes that regulate flux into commercially important products such as noscapine, codeine and morphine. This has allowed us to develop and patent new varieties of opium poppy that are deployed in commercial production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for the global supply of cough suppressants and analgesic painkillers.

Publications

• Winzer, T., Gazda, V., He, Z., Kaminski, F., Kern, M., Larson, T.R., Li, Y., Meade, F., Teodor, R., Vaistij, F.E., Walker, C., Bowser, T.A., Graham, I.A. (2012). A Papaver somniferum 10-gene cluster for synthesis of the anticancer alkaloid noscapine. Science, 336: 1704-8.
• Winzer, T., Kern, M., King, A.J., Larson, T.R., Teodor, R.I., Donninger, S., Li, Y., Dowle, A.A., Cartwright, J., Bates, R., Ashford, D., Thomas, J., Walker, C., Bowser, T.A., Graham, I.A. (2015). Morphinan biosynthesis in opium poppy requires a P450-oxidoreductase fusion protein. Science, 349: 309-312.
• Guo, L., Winzer, T., Yang, X., Li, Y., Ning, Z., He, Z., Teodor, R., Lu, Y., Bowser, T.A., Graham, I.A., Ye, K. (2018). The opium poppy genome and morphinan production. Science, 362: 343-347.
• Catania, T., Li, Y., Winzer, T., Harvey, D., Meade, F., Caridi, A., Leech, A., Larson, T.R., Ning, Z., Chang, J., Van de Peer, Y., Graham, I.A. (2022). A functionally conserved STORR gene fusion in Papaver species that diverged 16.8 million years ago. Nature Communications, doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-31568-x.