Research Group for Pharmacognosy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry , Uppsala University , BMC, Box 574, S-75123 Uppsala , Sweden.
J Nat Prod. 2019 Apr 26;82(4):798-812. doi: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.8b00767. Epub 2019 Mar 26.
Plants possess an outstanding chemical diversity of specialized metabolites developed to adapt to environmental niches and increase fitness. The observed diversity is hypothesized to result from various evolutionary mechanisms, such as the continuous branching off and extension of existing biosynthetic pathways or enhanced levels of catalytic promiscuity in certain enzymes. In this study, ChemGPS-NP has been employed to chart the distribution and diversity of physicochemical properties for selected types of specialized metabolites from the angiosperms. Utilizing these charts, it is analyzed how different properties of various types of specialized metabolites change in different plant groups, and the chemical diversity from the volume they occupy in chemical property space is evaluated. In this context, possible underlying evolutionary mechanisms are discussed, which could explain the observed distribution and behavior in chemical property space. Based on these studies, it is demonstrated that evolutionary processes in plant specialized metabolism and the resultant metabolic diversification are reflected in chemical property space.
植物拥有出色的化学多样性，这些特殊代谢产物是为了适应环境小生境和提高适应性而发展起来的。观察到的多样性被假设是由各种进化机制产生的，例如现有生物合成途径的不断分支和扩展，或者某些酶的催化混杂程度提高。在这项研究中，ChemGPS-NP 被用于绘制被子植物中特定类型特殊代谢产物的理化性质分布和多样性图谱。利用这些图谱，可以分析不同类型特殊代谢产物的不同性质在不同植物群中的变化，并评估它们在化学性质空间中占据的化学多样性。在这方面，讨论了可能的潜在进化机制，这些机制可以解释在化学性质空间中观察到的分布和行为。基于这些研究，表明植物特殊代谢产物的进化过程及其导致的代谢多样化反映在化学性质空间中。
