Claudio Cerboncini and his colleagues have for the first time isolated dicaffeoyl quinic acid (DCQA) from sunflowers. DCQA occurs also in artichoke and wild chicory, though in extremely small quantities – the current market price is €1,000 per milligram. The Bonn researchers believe it could be produced at a fraction of the price using their discovery.
Cerboncini’s research began with the mould Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, the cause of white stem rot, which in certain weather conditions can destroy an entire sunflower crop. However, some sunflowers have the ability to survive more or less unscathed by producing antitoxins that put a stop to the fungus.
By infecting different varieties of sunflower plants with S. sclerotiorum, Cerboncini isolated antitoxins, including DCQA, which the plant produces in response to a fungal attack.
“DCQA is one of the few substances known today that inhibit integrase, an enzyme that is essential for HIV to reproduce,” said Cerboncini. In contract to other antiviral treatments, integrase inhibitors are so specific that are predicted to have limited side effects in man.
Cerboncini’s collaborator, Ralf Theisen of the Centre of Molecular Biotechnology at Bonn University, is now trying to identify the gene that prompts the sunflower to produce DCQA, paving the way for it to be produced in bacterial cell culture.
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