Group – Mitragynine Secondary Metabolites
INTRODUCTION
The research group focuses on the secondary metabolite study covering both biological and chemical analysis. Initially, the project has taken off by sourcing out the natural product of mitragynine and other potential compound in the industry for cancer disease management and opium addiction.
The group has adopted the cell culture system approach to analysis and study the production of this secondary metabolite. A few Agrobacterium strains will be used to infect Mitragyna tissue for hairy roots production in addition to the regeneration of cell suspension culture. Beside that, several factors such as biotic, abiotic, compound signal and different media will be analysed for the secondary metabolite production. At the molecular level, the group is also interested on several important genes invoved in the biosynthetic pathway of mitragynine.
We have successfully isolated strictosidin synthase (STR), the main and rate-limiting enzyme for the mitragynine synthesis. We sought the STR conserved region and primer designed for the isolation of partial sequences that code for STR. The used of bionformatic tools would lead us to the prediction of biosynthtesis pathway and also the protein structure modeling involved in mitragynine production.
RESEARCH FOCUS
- Sourcing for mitragynine and mitragynine derivatives
- Analysis of mitragynine production through tissue culture system
- Cloning and characterization of key enzymes in mitragynine biosynthesis
- Integrating genomic and bibliomic data with structural bioinformatics
TEAM MEMBERS
Leader
- Prof. Dr. Ismanizan Ismail
Members
- Emeritus Prof. Dato’ Dr. Md. Ikram Mohd. Said
- Prof. Dr. Normah Mohd Noor
- Prof. Dr. Zamri Zainal
- Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zeti Azura Mohamed Hussein
GROUP LEADER: PROF. DR. ISMANIZAN ISMAIL
School of Biosciences and Biotechnology
Faculty of Science and Technology
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 Bangi, Selangor
Tel: 603-89213297
Email: maniz@ukm.edu.my