Scientific Area
Fragrances from plants you normally disregard
ID: 613 / 269
Category: Abstract
Track: Pending
Proposed Symposium Title: Fragrances from plants you normally disregard
Authors:
Correntin Conard1, Henrik Toft Simonsen1
Affiliations: Laboratoire Biotechnologies Végétales plantes aromatiques et médicinales Faculté des sciences, Université Jean Monnet 23 rue Dr Paul Michelon, 42023 Saint-Etienne cédex 2, France
Abstract:
Bryophytes are the pillows in the forest with numerous ecological functions, producing a huge variety of specialized metabolites. It is well established, but maybe not so well known, that liverworts produce interesting terpenoids and bibenzyls. While some of these have interesting pharmacological functions, the liverworts also produce terpenoids with interesting fragrances, which attract microarthropods to help with sperm cell distribution. The knowledge about the production of fragrances among bryophytes is scarce, thus we have embarked on projects to identify novel terpene synthases and other enzymes part of the terpenoid profiles. In liverworts microbial-like terpene synthases play a crucial role in the synthesis of smaller terpenoids. Examples from Frullania tamariscii, Nardia scalaris, and Lophocolea bidentata will be shown.