Plants produce a panoply of structurally and functionally diverse natural chemicals known as specialized metabolites.
Evolutionary assembly of a multistep specialized metabolic pathway using descendants from enzyme folds rooted in primary metabolism.
The Weng lab uses X-ray crystallography to understand biological processes at atomic resolution.
By combining bioinformatics and biochemistry, we seek to understand the biophysical determinants shaping enzyme evolvability in divergent protein lineages.
Chemical communication between plants and root microbiota. Image credit: Matthew Crook/Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
The tough outer wall (exine) of pollen grains is made up of sporopollenin, an ancient biopolymer that contributed to the emergence of land plants 450 MYA.
Selaginella, a genus representing the oldest lineage of vascular plants, offers an ideal system for studying parallel and convergent metabolic evolution in terrestrial plants.
Overview
Early plants began colonizing terrestrial Earth approximately 470 million years ago. Their success on land has been attributed to the evolution of a dazzling array of often lineage-specific, specialized metabolic traits, which serve as a means to cope with a myriad of ecological pressures. Our lab explores the origin and evolution of plant specialized metabolism at the enzyme, pathway, and systems levels. We have a broad interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms and functional implications underlying chemical interactions between plants and other organisms, including humans. Leveraging the fundamental knowledge learned from plant metabolism, we devise bioengineering strategies that enable innovative approaches to drug discovery, sustainable production of valuable medicinal and commodity chemicals, trait improvement in agricultural crops, and the development of climate remediation biotechnologies.
