Moonyoung Kang

New Article: "Elucidation of gene clusters underlying withanolide biosynthesis in ashwagandha through yeast metabolic engineering" rdcu.be/e14YH

4 cyt. P450s, 1 dehydrogenase, 1 sulfotransferase build core scaffold of products with neurological/anti-cancer properties.

Advancing regulatory variant effect prediction with AlphaGenome - Nature AlphaGenome, a deep learning model that inputs 1-Mb DNA sequence to predict functional genomic tracks at single-base resolution across diverse modalities, outperforms existing models in variant effect...

I had intended to post something about this new Google DeepMind paper that appeared yesterday in Nature, but the press coverage has added to what there is to say. So this is a long 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Multiple protein structure alignment at scale with FoldMason Protein structure is conserved beyond sequence, making multiple structural alignment (MSTA) essential for analyzing distantly related proteins. Computational prediction methods have vastly extended ou...

FoldMason is out now in @science.org. It generates accurate multiple structure alignments for thousands of protein structures in seconds. Great work by Cameron L. M. Gilchrist and @milot.bsky.social.
📄 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🌐 search.foldseek.com/foldmason
💾 github.com/steineggerla...

Elucidation of gene clusters underlying withanolide biosynthesis in ashwagandha through yeast metabolic engineering - Nature Plants The authors identify key enzymes, including four cytochrome P450s, a dehydrogenase and a sulfotransferase, that together build the core chemical scaffold of withanolides, medicinal compounds from ashw...

Elucidation of gene clusters underlying withanolide biosynthesis in ashwagandha through yeast metabolic engineering www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natplants.nature.com

Bee-hunting beetles are the first animals known to fake the smell of flowers Study of parasitic blister beetles reveals a new form of chemical deception

Exclusive: These bee-hunting beetles are the first animals known to fake the smell of flowers, according to a new study. https://scim.ag/49Bf8ho

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...

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.

plantiSMASH 2.0: improvements to detection, annotation, and prioritization of plant biosynthetic gene clusters https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.28.683968v1

Excited to see our paper online! We combined scMS and scRNA-seq from the same plant cells 🌱 — a step toward true single-cell multi-omics in plants.
Overview 👇

Discovery of iridoid cyclase completes the iridoid pathway in asterids - Nature Plants Iridoids are terpenoid metabolites found in thousands of plants. Using single-cell transcriptomics, the authors discovered an unexpected enzyme that has been neofunctionalized to catalyse the cyclization required to form the iridoid scaffold.

Very exciting to finally see our iridoid cyclase ICYC online @natplants.nature.com!
A joined effort with Robin Buell’s lab with Josh Wood generating snRNA-seq, and my student Chloée Tymen performing the initial experiment.
#natprod
#PlantScience
@mpi-ce.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Super excited to introduce our recent work published in @natprot.nature.com today. Here we introduce a step-by-step protocol for applying multiple data analysis workflows in GNPS2 for drug metabolism studies.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

HT SpaceM: A high-throughput and reproducible method for small-molecule single-cell metabolomics Single-cell metabolomics (SCM) can probe metabolic heterogeneity but is hindered by low sensitivity for small molecules, limited scalability, and the lack of standardized frameworks for data analysis....

HT SpaceM: A high-throughput and reproducible method for small-molecule single-cell metabolomics #Cell #MassSpec www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Enzymatic epimerization of monoterpene indole alkaloids in kratom - Nature Chemical Biology Monoterpene indole alkaloids are formed via a 3S stereoselective condensation between secologanin and tryptamine. Here the authors uncover the mechanism of epimerization behind uncommon 3R-containing ...

Here, the authors @oconnorlab.bsky.social @mpi-ce.bsky.social uncover the mechanism of epimerization behind uncommon 3R-containing alkaloids in Mitragyna speciosa (Kratom) and study their inclusion in downstream biosynthesis #PlantScience #natprod

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Withanolide #biosynthesis from nightshade plants decoded. Withanolide steroids are used as a basis for medications for centuries.

Now published by a team around @frankelab.bsky.social + @puckerlab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61686-1).

New Article: "High-temperature-induced FKF1 accumulation promotes flowering through the dispersion of GI and degradation of SVP" rdcu.be/evfAY

GI forms an inactive nuclear condensate that is dispersed at high temperatures by FKF1 binding to GI’s disordered region.

Artificial condensates can boost metabolic engineering | Plantae Nicotiana benthamiana is widely used to reconstruct complex, multi-step metabolic pathways for research or industrial purposes. This is enabled by rapid and high-level protein expression after…

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Artificial condensates can boost metabolic engineering (Plant Biotechnol. J.) @leesweetlove.bsky.social‬ @anyalb.bsky.social‬ (Summary by Ciara O’Brien @ciara_obrien.bsky.social) buff.ly/Y5wFnGv

#PlantaePSRW

Lead author @matildeflorean.bsky.social‬ et al. from the @oconnorlab.bsky.social discover a "fake" enzyme in plants that enables the formation of free indole, a key molecule for defense & attracting pollinators.
www.ice.mpg.de/496511/PR_Fl...

This is a must-read for everyone involved in metabolomics.

Personally I love this article because I no longer have to write a long paragraph when I say 'please don't use pathway analysis' during peer review 🤣

Ipecac alkaloid biosynthesis in two evolutionarily distant plants - Nature Chemical Biology Ipecac alkaloids are plant-derived compounds historically used to induce vomiting. Here the authors elucidate how two evolutionary distant plant species have evolved to produce the same ipecac alkaloi...

Finally online and open access!
This revised version has a slightly different title and contains a number of additional supplementary figures, mainly in vitro enzyme assays. Kept me quite busy in the lab at the end of last year!
#PlantScience
#natprod
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Glyceollin biosynthesis in a plant chassis engineered for isoflavone production - Nature Chemical Biology Biosynthesis of antimicrobial phytoalexin glyceollins in soybean is complicated and elusive. Here Xie et al. report a plant chassis for high-yield isoflavonoid production, leading to the identificatio...

A new paper reports a plant chassis for high-yield isoflavonoid production, leading to the identification of six P450s that complete the 15-step biosynthesis of diverse glyceollins, which are critical compounds for plant defense

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exploring the untapped potential of single‐cell and spatial omics in plant biology Advances in single-cell and spatial omics technologies have revolutionised biology by revealing the diverse molecular states of individual cells and their spatial organization within tissues. The fie...

Excited to share my new Tansley Review @newphyt.bsky.social on emerging single-cell and spatial omics technologies, many of which are just beginning to be applied in plant biology! Big opportunities lie ahead for the field. [1/n] 

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Convergent acquisition of disulfide-forming enzymes in malodorous flowers Identifying the metabolic and genetic changes that confer evolutionary novelty is essential for understanding the factors facilitating or constraining the occurrence of traits. We show that dimethyl d...

Convergent evolution of "smelling like rotting meat" is mediated by a 3 amino-acid chance in a conserved enzymes, just out @science.org 🔽

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Elucidation of the final steps in Taxol biosynthesis and its biotechnological production - Nature Synthesis In Taxol biosynthesis, the steps leading up to the intermediate baccatin III are understood, however, the final steps remain elusive. Here elucidation of the final steps of Taxol biosynthesis enables ...

Our work on Taxol biosynthesis is now out at @natsynth.nature.com. You can read it here: www.nature.com/articles/s44...