Danielle Taylor, Barbara Radzikowska and Sandesh Swamidatta from The Lichman Lab at CNAP at the University of York

Daphniphyllum macropodum is a species of small evergreen tree native to South East and East Asia. They are the only plants capable of producing a unique class of bioactive natural product, known collectively as Daphniphyllum alkaloids.

The function of these alkaloids are unknown but it is thought that these are produced to aid in defense against herbivores or to mediate interactions with other plants or soil microbes.

Extracts from these plants are used in traditional medicines, and the pure alkaloids have been shown to have anti-cancer, anti-fungal and anti-HIV properties.

Consequently, we are interested in their potential for medical use; however, this is challenging as plants produce them in tiny quantities and in complex mixtures.

We aim to understand how D. macropodum is able to make these complex alkaloids. To do these we try to identify how different alkaloids are distributed across plants and then determine which genes in the plant are responsible for their presence.

We work with four plants found in Ray Wood, in the grounds of Castle Howard and managed by the Yorkshire Arboretum. We also grow seedlings from seeds collected from those plants. We first identified these plants using the plant collection database available on the Arboretum's website.

We aim to use our research to develop methods to obtain specific alkaloids in higher quantities. This will allow us to determine their potential as future medicines, for example as antibiotics or chemotherapy agents.

This work is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). For more information about work in our lab, please visit https://lichmanlab.weebly.com/.