Plants may be “borrowing” genes from bacteria for their and our benefit

Plants produce chemicals to protect themselves from threats.

To fight off insects, or other creatures who really do not like the taste of these chemicals.

A side effect of these self protecting chemicals is that we can use these chemicals for medical treatments, or everyday products such as caffeine and nicotine.

One question scientists have sat on for a long time is, how is it that these chemicals are discovered by the plants in the first place? 

Plants discover the same chemicals

A recent discovery shed light on this largely unknown field of research.

In the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology they found that two plant species “invented” the same chemical which is coincidentally also a medically interesting substance.

Even though the plants were distantly related. These chemicals are called “Ipecac alkaloids” and occur in two distantly related plant species, coincidentally they are both and separately used for medicinal practices.

The plants are Carapichea ipecacuanha, which belongs to the gentian family, and in the sage-leaved alangium (Alangium salviifolium), which belongs to the dogwood family. 

Maite Colinas, first author of the study, asked these questions: "The last common ancestor of these species lived more than 100 million years ago, so we hypothesized that the two species had independently developed ways to produce ipecac alkaloids.

A key question was whether they had found the same or different pathways to produce these compounds, both chemically and enzymatically."

Borrow useful genes

This hypothesis and research can be related to the work of Dr. Benjamin Lichman from the University of York's Department of Biology.

Researchers working on a plant known as Flueggea suffruticosa, were interested in how plants make a different alkaloid.

The team discovered a detail.

The key gene (which in this case are the blueprints to make these chemicals) responsible for making this chemical in the plant resembles genes found more often in bacteria rather than in plants.

This suggests that plants may have an evolutionary strategy which lets them incorporate (borrow) genes from bacteria to build their own chemicals.

Dr. Benjamin Lichman explained why this find is so counterintuitive. "Plants and bacteria are really different forms of life, and so it really was a surprise to see that this significant plant chemical was being driven from a bacterial-like gene.”

Although, this is still a theory, the researchers do believe this approach could be used by plants all over earth and through history.

Which would explain why many different plants ‘discover’ the same chemicals, which we could then use.

Something to think about next time you are having some caffeine (a coffee). 

References

Maite Colinas, Clara Morweiser, Olivia Dittberner, Bianca Chioca, Ryan Alam, Helena Leucke, Yoko Nakamura, Delia Ayled Serna Guerrero, Sarah Heinicke, Maritta Kunert, Jens Wurlitzer, Kerstin Ploss, Benke Hong, Veit Grabe, Adriana A. Lopes, Sarah E. O’Connor. Ipecac alkaloid biosynthesis in two evolutionarily distant plants. Nature Chemical Biology, 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41589-025-01926-z

Catharine X. Wood, Zhouqian Jiang, Inesh Amarnath, Lachlan J. N. Waddell, Uma Sophia Batey, Oriana Serna Daza, Katherine Newling, Sally James, Gideon Grogan, William P. Unsworth, Benjamin R. Lichman. Parallel evolution of plant alkaloid biosynthesis from bacterial‐like decarboxylases. New Phytologist, 2026; DOI: 10.1111/nph.70884