Engel group

The study of the chlorophyll degradation is important not only for plant physiology but has also great implication on human and animal nutrition. About 1000 million tons of chlorophyll are annually degraded and newly synthesized, an impressive visual phenomenon in autumn and spring time. Both, chlorophylls and hemes are molecules with porphyrinic structure but antagonistic function and are paramount to life. In algae and higher plants the chlorophyll macrocycle is sequentially degraded into a series of bile pigment like tetrapyrroles by an oxydative ring opening processes. Degradation products derive from naturally de-greened autumnal leaves as well as artificially dark bleached leaves.

The goals of our research are the isolation and identification of hitherto unknown chlorophyll catabolites from autumnal, artificially bleached, and fungal infected leaves. Catabolites have recently been found in wine as glycosylated maleimide(s) and in leaves of the Mangosteentree. Total chemical synthesis in a stepwise fashion will be carried out in future, especially the fused iso-cyclic ring system confronts the synthetic chemist with a great challenge.

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