Monkshood and larkspur are two of the more dangerous plants a gardener can grow. They also produce a family of chemically complex compounds called diterpenoid alkaloids that researchers have wanted to study for decades and have struggled to obtain in usable quantities.
A team led by Michigan State University, working with the Czech Academy of Sciences, has now mapped the first stretch of the assembly line. Six enzymes, working in sequence, build a diterpenoid alkaloid called atisinium.
