FIVE schemes for biosynthesis of the lysergic acid moiety of the ergot alkaloids have been proposed recently. All of them involve tryptophan or 5-hydroxytryptophan as precursors 1,2.

Ctemo, Raper and Short 2 have since shown clearly that the alkaloid must have the structure ... leads to the following formulations for the biosynthesis of sparteine (II) and lupinine (III).

Additionally, the team's transcriptome sequencing across various tissues highlighted the expansion of key gene families involved in the biosynthesis of isoquinoline and indole alkaloids ...