Quantification of the Phytochemical Landscape
A Part III Project at the University of Cambridge - Systems Biology
Plants communicate with and react to their environment with a sophisticated and flexible chemical production line - the terpene synthesizer. The machinery is combinatorial, where a series of enzymatic reactions lead to production and emission of a diverse array of biogenic volatile organic compounds or BVoCs from the vegetation into the atmosphere that play roles in plant growth, reproduction and defense, but also have significant effects on other organisms and on atmospheric chemistry. The huge diversity and species-specific complexity of terpene metabolites is achieved through combinatorial modulations of active site architecture and reaction microenvironments in these enzymes, creating the ‘Terpenome’.
Goal: To quantify the plant Terpenome and correlate it with phytochemical evolution.
Unanswered Questions:
- What are the forces driving differentiation and evolution of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds – Are these internal factors (Redox Theory) or external factors (Natural selection)?
- To what extent is the phytochemical composition structure reflected in the structure of taxonomic diversity?
- How does global climate change affect BVoC emission?
Student: Ewan Salter
Supervisor: Gita Yadav