Harnessing two UDP‐glycosyltransferases from Saponaria officinalis toward heterologous production of endosomal escape enhancer saponins in Gypsophila elegans hairy roots
Tongtong Qu, Helga Schinkel, Tessa Moses, Kaylan Reddy, René de Vaumas, Stefan Schillberg, Alain Goossens, Elia Lacchini · 2026
Read Harnessing two UDP‐glycosyltransferases from Saponaria officinalis toward heterologous production of endosomal escape enhancer saponins in Gypsophila elegans hairy roots by Tongtong Qu, Helga Schinkel, Tessa Moses, Kaylan Reddy, René de Vaumas, Stefan Schillberg, Alain Goossens, Elia Lacchini (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13595893.txt.
Description
Soapwort plants make saponins, sugar-coated molecules that can help drugs escape the small compartments that trap them inside cells. One soapwort saponin, SO1861, is prized for exactly that trick, but the last steps of its assembly were unknown. Tongtong Qu and co-authors hunted for the enzymes that attach the final sugars, testing candidates from soapwort in lab assays.
They identified one new enzyme, UGT73EU1, and found a second job for a known enzyme, UGT73M2. Both help convert earlier saponins toward SO1861 and its relatives. When the team switched on UGT73EU1 in hairy roots of a related plant that never makes these compounds, the roots began producing them. The work shows a route to manufacturing valuable saponins in engineered plants.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Tongtong Qu, Helga Schinkel, Tessa Moses, Kaylan Reddy, René de Vaumas, Stefan Schillberg, Alain Goossens, Elia Lacchini |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 61 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |