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Benjamin Schwabe

@benschwabe.bsky.social

(Bio)chemistry PhD student @ Uni of York, UK

4 Posts55 Follower92 Folgt
@rnett42.bsky.social · 5d ago

Plants can synthesize mimics of the insect molting hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) to defend against pests. In this preprint, we discover that two plant families independently evolved biosynthetic gene clusters to make 20E. Amazing team effort by my lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Convergent biosynthesis of insect molting hormones in plants

Insect herbivores have driven plants to evolve complex chemical defenses, including mimics of the arthropod molting hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E). Many distantly related plants produce 20E, suggest...

biorxiv.org

Benjamin Schwabe@benschwabe.bsky.social · 2w ago

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

@rnett42.bsky.social · 2mo ago

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

Benjamin Schwabe@benschwabe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

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 ago

New 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

Benjamin Schwabe@benschwabe.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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

Lichman Lab@lichmanlab.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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

Maite Colinas@maitecolinas.bsky.social · 8mo ago

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 ago

Nicotine biosynthesis completed by cryptic activating glucosylation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.04.692101v1

Lichman Lab@lichmanlab.bsky.social · 8mo ago

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