It has been a dream of mine to combine my experience with analytical chemistry with my passion for plant breeding. What better opportunity than to begin breeding projects to enhance either the yield or the specific composition of plant-derived natural products?
Catharanthus alkaloids: Consider the alkaloids in vinca (Catharanthus roseus). This family of bioactive compounds have been used for decades as anticancer drugs. In particular, the compounds vincristine and vinblastine --- extracted and purified from vinca roots --- are used in treating specific types of cancer. The raw product --- vinca roots, mostly --- is grown on a commercial scale in India and Madagascar.
But most of us in horticulture know Catharanthus as vinca, and think of it as an ornamental plant. Can you breed for increased alkaloid content? The answer, of course, is "Yes". There are actually patents in the literature that describe this very process.
At G2, we consider natural product content to be a characteristic for which you can breed.
Flavor: Have you ever wished that you could grow an intensely-flavored garden-ripe tomato that also had good disease-resistance so that you could easily grow it all season long? Or a gloriously sweet, lusciously aromatic muskmelon, but in a single serving-sized fruit on a short-vined plant in your home garden? How about a disease-resistant bush snap bean with that rich green bean flavor that occurs with some of the heirloom pole beans? At G2, we consider flavor and aroma to be traits for which you can breed.
Fragrance: There have been a number of new lilac releases over the past decade. All are smaller forms, good plants for foundation plantings, or large containers. Most of these are really nice garden plants, but none of them has that intensely fragrant lilac scent which we all associate with the May-blooming species, Syringa vulgaris. At G2, we consider fragrance enhancement to be an approriate goal for a breeding program.
Some of you may be reacting by saying "Yes, but flavor and fragrance aren't really bioactive natural products like those vinca chemicals, are they?" In many cases, the bioactive components in the living plant or its fruit become the natural product once they are extracted and concentrated.
Natural product yield: Imagine being able to increase the amount of purple pigment that a crop like this basil produces. Not only would the intensely purple basil have ornamental potential, if the plant produced enough biomass per hectare, perhaps the purple pigment could be extracted on a commercial scale, especially if it were to be produced under organic conditions. A natural colorant. Produced under sustainable or organic agricultural conditions. High yield of the natural product. At G2, we consider yield enhancement of natural products to be something for which you can breed.
Specific composition enhancement: There are many herbal products which contain trace amounts of secondary products which may have significant side effects. For instance, pennyroyal is a flavorful mint with many potential therapeutic uses. However, pennyroyal also contains the hepatotoxic compound pulegone, which severely limits its use. Is it possible to breed pennyroyal to be pulegone-free (or at least reduce the amount of pulegone)? At G2, we consider specific composition changes to be attainable breeding objectives.
G2 has the facilities to do simple chemistry in our facility. To conduct more sophisticated chemistry, we would outsource to one of the good labs. I spent almost 20 years growing and managing an outsourced analytical chemistry services business, and know this scientific and market space very well. Furthermore, once the required sample analysis volume reaches a critical threshold, we will always consider the cost-effectiveness of building the capacity internally. We consider this experience one of G2's significant advantages in considering natural product germplasm enhancement projects.
We know plant breeding and genetics.
We know analytical chemistry and biochemistry.
We'd enjoy the challenge of combining those two areas of knowledge and expertise.
If this captures your curiosity, give us a call.
