Breviscapine has the function of dilating cerebrovascular and can be used for the treatment of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases such as cerebral thrombosis and paralysis of sequelae caused by cerebral embolism and cerebral hemorrhage. Due to the remarkable clinical application, Breviscapine was listed as an essential Chinese medicine for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in the emergency department of Chinese Medicine Hospital in 1995. Breviscapine injection with higher purity and safety was approved by CFDA in 2005. At present the market value of such drugs has been close to 50 billion yuan. By use of synthetic biology and bioinformatics, the key genes (P450 enzyme EbF6H and glycosyltransferase EbF7GAT) in the Breviscapine synthesis pathway were successfully exressed and production optimized through metabolic engineering and fermentation optimization processes in yeast, leading to a Breviscapine content of 100 milligrams/L.
CAS news release, February 2, 2018