Scientists reveal origins of plant that sends cats into a frenzy

A team of international scientists, including academics from the University of York, have produced research about how catmint can produce complex molecules.

Findings from the research could help scientists to create medicines, such as anti-cancer drugs derived from plants.

Catmint, also known as catnip, is well known for its intoxicating effect on cats. The odour responsible for the cats’ strange behaviour is nepetalactone, a volatile iridoid produced by catmint.

Iridoids are substances some plants use to defend themselves against herbivores or pathogens.

Researchers, including Dr Benjamin Lichman from the University of York, sequenced the genome of catmint to understand how it makes nepetalactone and how it evolved to make this unique molecule.

Dr Lichman, from the department of biology, who has been working on the project for three years, said: "We would like to find out how evolution works - how different plants have evolved to make different chemicals."

He added: "Catnip is providing a really nice case study for us to investigate."

Dr Lichman said the team discovered a number of unusual enzymes which generate nepetalactone. These enzymes are not found in any related plant species and have evolved uniquely in catmint.

He said: "When we first saw the genome sequence of catmint we realized that the important genes that we hypothesized were active in the formation of nepetalactone were next to each other in the genome.

"This allowed us to solve the problem more easily."

Understanding how plants make complex molecules like nepetalactone could also lead to the ability to create medicines, such as anti-cancer drugs derived from plants, more efficiently and quickly than scientists are currently able to harvest them from nature.

Currently there are scientists working on anti-cancer drugs derived from plants in Denmark and the US.

"They take the enzymes from plants and they put them into yeast to try and make these anti-cancer drugs," Dr Lichman said.

"Some of the enzymes from catnip could be used within those systems."

The research was led by Professor Sarah O’Connor, from the department of natural product biosynthesis at the Max Planck Institute for chemical ecology in Germany.

Professor O’Connor said: "Plants are constantly evolving new chemistry. With our research, we would like to get snapshots of this evolution in action."

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