Cellular processing of proteins found in Congolese child birthing tea now revealed
Many plants produce compounds that serve as a defense against predators or pathogens. Some are also used by humans for a variety of beneficial purposes, such as in medicines. As recently as the early 1990s, a unique class of proteins previously unknown to science, the cyclotides, was discovered. First noted through African tribal use as a tea given to speed up delivery during childbirth, cyclotides have since been determined to serve as a powerful insecticidal and nematocidal defense in the plants that produce them, and they also have anti-HIV and antimicrobial properties, with obvious benefits for humans. However, scientists are still working on unlocking much of the basic science of these fascinating proteins, including how they work and where in the plant cell they are produced.