Discovery of novel metabolites linked to plant immunity

Natural products in plants ~ discovery and function

Collaborative project with Prof. Elizabeth Sattely, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University

Plants produce an enormous diversity of small molecules; many of these are implicated in plant-microbe interactions including defense against pathogens and association with beneficial symbionts. Despite the critical roles of these molecules in plant fitness, information regarding when, where, how, and why these novel specialized metabolites are made remains a poorly understood area of plant science. We are interested in elucidating how plants synthesize anti-microbial metabolites and use them to combat pathogen invasion. In collaboration with Elizabeth Sattely’s group in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, we have used a combination of untargeted metabolomics in conjunction with transcriptomics to accelerate the discovery of new metabolites and provide critical insights into their biosynthesis. This interdisciplinary approach has led to the isolation and characterization of N-hydroxy-pipecolic acid, a novel metabolite that is produced in response to pathogen infection and moves systemically in plants to prime immune responses in uninfected tissues. We have also identified a small gene cluster that is required for the biosynthesis of unusual modified fatty acids with anti-microbial and anti-tumor bioactivity.