The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded a $ 650,000 Duncan James Corrow Grant to a UF / IFAS research worker to study a plant that could help mitigate the opioid epidemic , a national wellness crisis creditworthy for more than 130 death each Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .
Mitragyna speciosa , or kratom , is a tree diagram belonging to the coffee bean family . The tree ’s leaves produce unique compounds call monoterpene indole alkaloids , which are have it off for various good pharmaceutic use . Mitragynine , for example , has show promise for treat painfulness , opioid use upset , and opioid withdrawal , and it does so without demo addiction voltage . Spirooxindole mitraphylline , another kratom alkaloid , is known for promoting anti - tumor activity .
But how kratom produces these alkaloid is unidentified . Satya Swathi Nadakuduti , an adjunct professor of plant life bioengineering and biochemistry in the UF / IFAS environmental horticulture department , will lead a team of interdisciplinary researchers attempt to identify the cistron involved and to trace the multi - step process through which the plant produce the alkaloid . The team will do so by studying the kratom works ’s genome , factor expression , and metabolite .
Satya Swathi Nadakuduti studying her plants ( Tyler Jones , UF / IFAS )
" Monoterpene indole alkaloids process as an authoritative germ for potential drug discovery , " Nadakuduti said . " Understanding their biosynthesis makes it potential to stick out drug development , and they could meet emerge and next markets as a solution to the opioid crisis . " Currently , there are no drug products contain kratom legally sold in the United States , and the Federal Drug Administration warns against using products made from the plant .
Some " apparent " kratom cultivars marketed in the country have modify alkaloid , and the biological effect of their consumption count on both the plant and the leaf growth point at harvest , Nadakuduti said . The pharmaceutical properties of these plants are either unknown or not well consider . " Therefore , reliance on kratom product of nameless alkaloid subject matter and confutable timbre , in addition to adulteration with other psychotropic substances , has become a concern in the United States , confound contrary upshot with a potency for revilement , " she enounce .
Nadakuduti ’s interdisciplinary team of researchers includes Christopher McCurdy , a medicative chemist with the UF College of Pharmacy ; Kelly Balmant , an adjunct prof of bioinformatics with the UF / IFAS horticultural sciences department ; and Thu - Thuy Dang , an adjunct professor of biochemistry , molecular biology and chemistry at the University of British Columbia .
Source : ifas.ufl.edu
