Benjamin Schwabe
@benschwabe.bsky.social
(Bio)chemistry PhD student @ Uni of York, UK
Thanks Jing-Ke Weng and @natchembio.nature.com for a great News and Views on our nicotine work from @lichmanlab.bsky.social and @geufloreslab.bsky.social ! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How tobacco builds nicotine - Nature Chemical Biology
Nicotine is among the most consequential of plant alkaloids, yet how tobacco joins its two nitrogen-containing rings has gone unsolved for over a century. Two new studies complete the pathway, reveali...
nature.com
In our new preprint, we report how clubmoss plants use an ancient biosynthetic pathway (>300 million years old!) to make huperzine A, an alkaloid with potential as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Great work by Eric Fields and @cyhkim.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Ancient origins of alkaloid biosynthesis in medicinal clubmosses
The plant kingdom is rich with medicinal natural products that are complex and difficult to access. Discovering how plants build these molecules can be challenging, especially for biosynthetic pathway...
biorxiv.org
Excited to see our work from @lichmanlab.bsky.social and @geufloreslab.bsky.social, and that from Chang et al., featured in a recent Nature Plants News & Views! Thanks @natplants.nature.com and Tsubasa Shoji! #natprod #PlantScience www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nature Plants@natplants.nature.com · 2mo agoNew News & Views: "A sweet solution to nicotine biosynthesis" rdcu.be/fl6qg ... unexpected role for glycosylation and a highly coordinated biosynthetic system that reshapes our understanding of plant specialized metabolism. #PlantScience
See the University of York press release to find out more, with Benjy @lichmanlab.bsky.social and me looking candid in the greenhouse! www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve... Photo courtesy of Violette Pepper!
Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
Scientists have uncovered how tobacco plants naturally make nicotine, solving a mystery that has puzzled researchers for nearly two centuries.
york.ac.uk
Another paper on the biosynthesis of nicotine out, congratulations to everyone involved!
Nicotine biosynthesis is completed by cryptic activating glucosylation - Nature Communications
Despite the significance of nicotine, a neuroactive alkaloid produced by tobacco, its biosynthesis has remained elusive. Here, the authors report the in vitro and in planta reconstruction of a fo...
doi.org
Nicotine biosynthesis is completed by cryptic activating glucosylation. Very excited to share the first publication from my PhD, published in @natcomms.nature.com reconstructing the critical ring coupling reaction in a four enzyme one-pot biocatalytic cascade! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nicotine biosynthesis is completed by cryptic activating glucosylation - Nature Communications
Despite the significance of nicotine, a neuroactive alkaloid produced by tobacco, its biosynthesis has remained elusive. Here, the authors report the in vitro and in planta reconstruction of a fo...
nature.com
Pleased to share our full publication of our manuscript describing completion of nicotine biosynthesis in @natcomms.nature.com following our pre-print from December last year. In this work we solve the 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nicotine biosynthesis is completed by cryptic activating glucosylation - Nature Communications
Despite the significance of nicotine, a neuroactive alkaloid produced by tobacco, its biosynthesis has remained elusive. Here, the authors report the in vitro and in planta reconstruction of a fo...
nature.com
We all assumed nicotine biosynthesis was long elucidated, didn't we? :) Well, it wasn't but now it is thanks to this work led by @benschwabe.bsky.social @lichmanlab.bsky.social Learned about these results last summer, a pleasure to see the preprint out, congratulations! #natprod #PlantScience
bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 8mo agoNicotine biosynthesis completed by cryptic activating glucosylation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.04.692101v1
The centuries old mystery of how tobacco plants make nicotine has a sweet solution: an additional glucose group is vital for the key pathway steps. Read more in our pre-print: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... Incredible work from @benschwabe.bsky.social and collaborators in York and Copenhagen.
Nicotine biosynthesis completed by cryptic activating glucosylation
Nicotine is a neuroactive alkaloid produced by tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) as a defense against herbivory, and an addictive stimulant that has been used by humans for millennia. Despite its significan...
biorxiv.org
Nicotine biosynthesis completed by cryptic activating glucosylation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.04.692101v1