Sibongile Mafu

Biological chemistry of plant natural products

PhD: Iowa State University

Postdoctoral Training: University of California, Davis

My interests are focused on exploring the biochemical diversity underlying plant natural product chemistry through elucidation of the biosynthetic components involved in the formation of specialized metabolites. This contributes to our understanding of the role of metabolites in adaptation of plants to their ecological niches and allows us to probe the underlying biochemical diversity and evolution of the enzymes involved.

Our research includes identification and biochemical functional characterization of enzymes towards pathway elucidation (with a focus on terpenes) and incorporation of protein engineering to gain a more in depth understanding into how enzymes of interest function. We work with a variety of plants and are particularly excited about a plant cell culture library that has a collection of several plant species, a great resource to more broadly study plant metabolic diversity.

Understanding the biochemical diversity underlying the vast natural plant product chemistry can be translated into useful agriculture or biotechnological applications including pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, flavors and fragrances.

Our research broadly covers:

•    Functional characterization of genes towards biosynthetic pathway elucidation
•    Enzyme diversity and evolution
•    Metabolic engineering

BMB Research Feature - Sibongile Mafu

Full list of publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=L0u7zlQAAAAJ&hl=en

• Shahi A, Yu H, Mafu S. (2022) Diterpene biosynthesis in rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe. Frontiers in Fungal Biology. ffunb.2022.869823
• Zhang Y, Kao PL, Rampal A, Mafu S, Savinov S Ma LJ. (2022) High throughput screening assays to identify plant natural products with antifungal properties against Fusarium oxysporum. Methods Mol Biol. 2391: 171-184.
• Shahi A & Mafu S. (2021) Specialized metabolites as mediators for plant-fungus crosstalk and their evolving roles. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 64:102141.
• Fotso GW, Ngameni B*, Storr TE, Ngadjui BT, Mafu S*, Stephenson GR. (2020) Synthesis of novel stilbene-coumarin derivatives and antifungal screening of Monotes kerstingii – specialized metabolites against Fusarium oxysporum. Antibiotics 9: 537
• Ding Y, Murphy KM, Poretsky E, Mafu S, Yang B, Char SN, Schmitz RJ, Christensen SA, Salvidar E, Wu M, Wang Q, Ji L, Schmitz R, Kremling KA, Buckler ES, Shen Z, Briggs SP, Bohlmann J, Sher A, Castro-Falcon G, Hughes CC, Huffaker A, Zerbe P, Schmelz EA. (2019) Multiple genes recruited from hormone pathways partition maize defenses. Nature Plants 5: 1043-1056
• Mafu S, Ding Y, Murphy K.M, Yaacoobi O, Addison J.B, Wang Q, Shen Z, Briggs SP, Wang Q, Bohlmann J, Castro-Falcon G, Hughes CC, Betsiashvili M, Huffaker A, Schmelz EA, Zerbe P. (2018) Discovery, biosynthesis and stress related accumulation of dolabradiene-derived defenses in maize. Plant Physiology 176(4): 2677-2690
• Mafu S, and Zerbe P. (2018) Plant diterpenoid metabolism for manufacturing the biopharmaceuticals of tomorrow:  prospects and challenges. Phytochemistry Reviews. 17(1): 113-130
• Mafu S, Karunanithi PS, Palazzo TA, Harrod BL, Rodriguez SM, Molhoff IN, O’Brien TE, Tong S, Fiehn O, Tantillo DJ, Bohlmann J, Zerbe P.  (2017). Biosynthesis of the microtubule-destabilizing diterpene pseudolaric acid B from golden larch involves an unusual diterpene synthase. PNAS. 2017 114 (5): 974-979 [PNAS]
• Mafu S, Fischer E, Addison JB, Riberio-Barbosana I, Zerbe P.  (2016) Substitution of two active site residues alters C9-hydroxylation in class II diterpene synthase. Chembiochem. 17(24):2304-2307
• Mafu S, Jia M, Zi J, Morrone D, Wu Y, Xu M, Hillwig ML, Peters RJ. (2016) Probing the promiscuity of ent-kaurene oxidases via combinatorial biosynthesis. PNAS. 113(9):2526-2531. [PubMed]
• Mafu S, Potter KC, Hillwig ML, Schulte S, Criswell J, Peters RJ. (2015) Efficient heterocyclisation by (di) terpene synthases. Chem. Commun. 51(70):13485-7. doi: 10.1039/c5cc05754j  [PubMed]
• Zerbe P, Rodriguez SM, Mafu S, Chiang A, Sandhu HK, O’Neil-Johnson M, Starks CM, Bohlmann J. (2015) Exploring diterpene metabolism in non-model species: transcriptome-enabled discovery and functional characterization of labda-7,13E-dienyl diphosphate synthase from Grindelia robusta.Plant J. 83(5):783-93. doi: 10.1111/tpj.12925
• Zi J, Mafu S, Peters RJ (2014) To Gibberellins and Beyond! Surveying the Evolution of (Di) terpenoid Metabolism. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 65:259-86. doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-050213-035705
• Mafu S, Hillwig ML, Peters RJ. (2011). A novel labda-7, 13E-dien-15-ol producing bifunctional diterpene synthase from Selaginella moellendorffii. Chembiochem 12(13): 1984-7  [PubMed]