Invasive plants have devastating effects on ecosystems and agriculture. Vincetoxicum rossicum, also known as dog-strangling vine, is an invasive species in North America. It exhibits resistance to native herbivores and pathogens, outperforms other species, and is difficult to control mechanically and with herbicides. V. rossicum forms dense monocultures in North America and produces unique pyrrolidine and phenanthroindolizidine alkaloids (PIAs) – a class of compounds demonstrating allelopathic and cytotoxic effects in plant and mammalian model systems – that we hypothesize are contributing to its invasiveness. In this work we use high-resolution mass spectrometry to examine the chemical diversity of V. rossicum populations and utilize comparative metabolomics techniques to find mass features corresponding to the unique chemistry of these plants, assay for phytotoxic properties of purified compounds and extracts, and begin to elucidate PIA biosynthesis through non-targeted metabolite profiling and stable isotope labelled precursor studies. Ultimately, understanding the chemistry of V. rossicum enables us to harness potentially valuable natural products for the control of other weedy species and provides unique targets for species-specific herbicides in the control invasive Vincetoxicum spp.

Alien chemistry: Elucidating the function and biosynthesis of pyrrolidine and phenanthroindolizidine alkaloids in highly invasive Vincetoxicum rossicum

ACS Fall 2021

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