Nat Chem Biol. 2009; 5(5): 344-350.
Fonseca S, Chini A, Hamberg M, Adie B, Porzel A, Kramell R, Miersch O, Wasternack C, Solano R.
Hormone-triggered activation of the jasmonate signaling pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana requires SCFCOI1-mediated proteasome degradation of JAZ repressors. (−)-JA-L-Ile is the proposed bioactive hormone, and SCFCOI1 is its likely receptor.
We found that the biological activity of (−)-JA-L-Ile is unexpectedly low compared to coronatine and the synthetic isomer (+)-JA-L-Ile, which suggests that the stereochemical orientation of the cyclopentanone-ring side chains greatly affects receptor binding. Detailed GC-MS and HPLC analyses showed that the (−)-JA-L-Ile preparations currently used in ligand binding studies contain small amounts of the C7 epimer (+)-7-iso-JA-L-Ile. Purification of each of these molecules demonstrated that pure (−)-JA-L-Ile is inactive and that the active hormone is (+)-7-iso-JA-L-Ile, which is also structurally more similar to coronatine.
In addition, we show that pH changes promote conversion of (+)-7-iso-JA-L-Ile to the inactive (−)-JA-L-Ile form, thus providing a simple mechanism that can regulate hormone activity through epimerization.