Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

RNA interference

Producing decaffeinated coffee plants

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

From Nature

View current issue Submit your manuscript

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 21 July 2004

Abstract

The demand for decaffeinated coffee is increasing because the stimulatory effects of caffeine can adversely affect sensitive individuals by triggering palpitations, increased blood pressure and insomnia1. Three N-methyltransferase enzymes are involved in caffeine biosynthesis in coffee plants — CaXMT1, CaMXMT1 (theobromine synthase) and CaDXMT1 (caffeine synthase), which successively add methyl groups to xanthosine in converting it into caffeine2,3,4. Here we describe the construction of transgenic coffee plants in which expression of the gene encoding theobromine synthase (CaMXMT1) is repressed by RNA interference (RNAi). The caffeine content of these plants is reduced by up to 70%, indicating that it should be feasible to produce coffee beans that are intrinsically deficient in caffeine.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1: Properties of decaffeinated transgenic coffee leaves.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. http://www.ico.org/frameset/coffset.htm

  2. Ashihara, H., Monteiro, A. M., Gillies, F. M. & Crozier, A. Plant Physiol. 111, 747–753 (1996).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Ogawa, M., Herai, Y., Koizumi, K., Kusano, T. & Sano, H. J. Biol. Chem. 276, 8213–8218 (2001).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Uefuji, H., Ogita, S., Yamaguchi, Y., Koizumi, N. & Sano, H. Plant Physiol. 132, 372–380 (2003).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Hatanaka, T., Choi, Y. E., Kusano, T. & Sano, H. Plant Cell Rep. 19, 106–110 (1999).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Ashihara, H. & Crozier, A. Trends Plant Sci. 6, 407–413 (2001).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Ohta, S., Mita, S., Hattori, T. & Nakamura, K. Plant Cell Physiol. 31, 805–813 (1990).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Education Centre for Genetic Information, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, 630-0192, Japan

    Shinjiro Ogita, Hirotaka Uefuji, Yube Yamaguchi, Nozomu Koizumi & Hiroshi Sano

Authors
  1. Shinjiro Ogita
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hirotaka Uefuji
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yube Yamaguchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nozomu Koizumi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Hiroshi Sano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hiroshi Sano.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ogita, S., Uefuji, H., Yamaguchi, Y. et al. Producing decaffeinated coffee plants. Nature 423, 823 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423823a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/423823a

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Search

Navigation