Welcome to the O'Connor group
The O’Connor Group investigates how plants and plant pathogens produce complicated molecules from simple metabolic building blocks.
Shown are the medicinal plants Catharanthus roseus, Rauvolfia serpentina and Camptotheca acuminata. These plants each produce valuable metabolites known as alkaloids that are used for a variety of pharmacological purposes. |
Plants produce hundreds of thousands of complex metabolites that are used clinically to treat a wide variety of diseases. Anti-cancer agents such as vinblastine and taxol, the analgesic morphine, and the anti-malarials artemisinin and quinine each come from a plant. Despite the importance of these compounds, it remains unclear how most of these complicated molecules are made. A major focus in our group is to elucidate, understand, and engineer these pathways so that we can fully harness the wealth of compounds and biocatalysts that plants have provided. Understanding the pathways, genes and enzymes that catalyze biosynthetic processes is now enabling us to use synthetic biology approaches to overproduce these valuable compounds in more tractable plant (e.g. Nicotiana benthamiana) or microbial (e.g. yeast) host organisms. Our research efforts are also enabling reprogramming of biosynthetic pathways to produce "unnatural" natural products with potentially improved bioactivities. |
We take a multi-disciplinary approach to answering these questions using plant molecular biology, enzymology and chemical strategies within our group. Researchers in our lab have a wide variety of backgrounds–from plant biology to biochemistry to synthetic organic chemistry–which enables us to employ a wide variety of scientific approaches in our research. |
Vincristine is isolated from the aeriel parts of Catharanthus roseus. This compound has been used for decades as a chemotherapy agent. The C. roseus genes that are responsible for building this molecule are largely unknown. |
Opportunities
Enquiries from potential postgraduate and postdoctoral scientists are welcomed. There is often the possibility of applying for fellowship and PhD studentship positions with funding from BBSRC, EU and John Innes Centre. Please contact Sarah O’Connor if interested.
