Desmethyl butenolides – the new frontier?

I have been a bit remiss in updating the website but thought I would mention this one while I’m on here: the latest publication from the lab is recently published in New Phytologist, Hugh Yao as first author with valuable contributions from Frank and Kim as well. We think KAI2 proteins prefer to work with butenolide compounds that lack a methyl group, versus D14 proteins that require a methyl group. We used a couple of different compounds – GR24 and nitrile debranones – and showed that if you remove their respective methyl groups, they become much more active through KAI2. And most importantly, they become *specific* for KAI2 – they do not activate D14. So now we have a specific molecular feature that can be used to manipulate KAI2-dependent signalling. Most excellent.

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