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Plant science

Fairy chemicals

Nature volume 505, page 298 (2014)Cite this article

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Those who cultivate manicured lawns curse 'fairy rings' of mushrooms (pictured) and the rapid grass growth associated with them. The compound that stimulates this growth, 2-azahypoxanthine (AHX), was isolated from a fungus in 2010, but Choi et al. now report in Angewandte Chemie that plants also produce it (J.-H. Choi et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn http://doi.org/f2phhs; 2014).

The authors treated several plants with AHX, and observed that it was metabolized to a compound called 2-aza-8-oxohypoxanthine (AOH). They went on to show that both AHX and AOH are produced by plants, and are present in rice at levels similar to those of plant hormones.

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  1. Andrew Mitchinson
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Mitchinson, A. Fairy chemicals. Nature 505, 298 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/505298a

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