Turning Over a New Leaf

Our new study opens up a new path to understanding how complex plant extracts are transformed through human metabolism.

Hello, my dear Nature’s Pharmacy community. I have some exciting news to share from the Quave Lab! Our new paper on multilayer molecular networking of the polymetabolism of complex whole plant extract mixtures has been published via open access in the American Chemical Society Journal of Natural Products!

There is a lot of complicated science in this one, so before you take a look at the scientific paper, please read the Emory press release by science writer Carol Clark first: Turning Over a New Leaf in Analyses of Natural Products: Breakthrough method gives ‘snapshot’ of a plant’s metabolic effects.

Cover of the Emory press release on our new scientific publication on mixtures biotransformation.

Our new research paper addresses a major challenge in metabolism research: how to understand what happens in the body when people consume chemically complex mixtures, rather than a single purified drug. This is highly relevant not only to pharmacology and toxicology, but also to nutrition and dietary supplement research more broadly.

For this study, we focused on kratom (Mitragyna speciosa, Rubicaceae), a plant in the coffee family that is of growing economic and public health importance. Kratom is increasingly used in the U.S. both as a recreational beverage ingredient and by some individuals seeking alternatives for pain management or to reduce opioid use. Because kratom contains dozens of related bioactive compounds, its metabolism is far more complex than most traditional drug studies account for.

Why does this work matter to everyday consumers?

People rarely consume just one purified chemical. Instead, they regularly take in complex mixtures from foods, teas, and herbal supplements. This study introduces a new way to see how the body processes many related plant compounds at the same time, which better reflects real life. The research also shows that some of the most important bioactive compounds are actually created by the body during metabolism, not present in high amounts in the plant itself. This helps explain why botanical products like kratom can have variable and sometimes unpredictable effects between people and products.

Will Crandall, the PhD student who led this work, examining specimens of kratom plants in the Emory Herbarium. Photo credit: T. Samarakoon.

What is kratom and why is it relevant?

Kratom is a plant from Southeast Asia that is increasingly sold in the U.S. in teas, powders, and extracts. People use it for a range of reasons, including pain, mood, and to manage opioid withdrawal, but products vary widely in their chemical makeup. This study shows that different kratom products can be metabolized differently in the body, producing different active compounds. These findings highlight the need for better scientific characterization and oversight of botanical products that are widely available to consumers but remain chemically complex and inconsistently regulated.

Want to support more research like this?

We are constantly pushing the limits of science to innovate new strategies for tackling some of the toughest questions in plant natural products discovery. If you’d like to make a contribution to support the work of my amazing students and postdocs, you can do so by making a tax-deductible contribution directly to my lab research account at our dedicated Emory Giving Page.

No money? No problem! Help spread the word about our work by sharing the press release with your networks. Thanks for all that you do to support our community!

Yours in health, Dr. Quave

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Cassandra L. Quave, Ph.D. is a Guggenheim Fellow, CNN Champion for Change, Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, recipient of The National Academies Award for Excellence in Science Communication, and award-winning author of The Plant Hunter. Her day job is as Professor, Herbarium Director, and Associate Dean at Emory University School of Medicine, where she leads a group of research scientists studying medicinal plants to find new life-saving drugs from nature. She hosts the Foodie Pharmacology podcast and writes the Nature’s Pharmacy newsletter to share the science behind natural medicines. To support her effort, consider a paid or founding subscription to Nature’s Pharmacy or donation to her lab research.

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