plants Archives - Bright Giant

Discoveries

Cultural Heritage Preservation: SIRIUS for Identifying Yellow Dye Markers

Identifying the botanical origins of yellow dyes in ancient textiles is a notorious challenge due to the chemical overlap of common pigments across different plant species. This study introduces a robust metabolomics workflow designed to move beyond ubiquitous molecules like quercetin to find species-specific “Gold” chemical markers using SIRIUS.

Franziska Hufsky 2026-05-12 No Comments

Discoveries

Discovering a Novel Phenolic Compound in Fern With SIRIUS

The specialized metabolism of ferns remains a largely untapped frontier in the search for natural medicinal compounds. Using SIRIUS molecular structure annotation, researchers successfully identified a previously unknown lignan named blechnic acid B. This novel compound, found in Neoblechnum brasiliense, highlights the chemical diversity hidden within under-investigated plant lineages.

Franziska Hufsky 2026-05-05 No Comments

Discoveries

SIRIUS in the Jena Experiment: It’s a Battle for Resources, Not a Break from Pests

In a biodiverse ecosystem, it’s often assumed that plants have safety in numbers—that a mix of species will confuse pests and dilute disease pressure, allowing individual plants to save energy on defences and focus on growth. But is this ecological truism always the case? A recent study from the long-running Jena Experiment uses untargeted metabolomics and SIRIUS for feature annotation and compound class prediction. They found that for many plants in a diverse community it is less about relaxing their defences and more about adapting to intense competition for light and nutrients.

Franziska Hufsky 2025-11-18 No Comments

Discoveries

a-MAIZE-ing: Sustainable Pest Control Investigated with SIRIUS

Agriculture has always been a dance with nature, requiring farmers to constantly adapt to changing conditions. One particularly promising method that has emerged over recent decades is push-pull technology, a strategy that uses nature’s own defenses to protect crops and boost yields. Using SIRIUS, researchers uncovered metabolites in push-pull maize that enhance its natural defense against pests.

Franziska Hufsky 2024-10-28 No Comments

A forest bathed in sunlight. Lignin is essential for stability of wood.

Discoveries

Adding value to by-products: Unraveling the complex structure of lignin with SIRIUS

Despite being one of Earth’s most abundant polymeric organic compounds, lignin is often considered a lower-value byproduct in industrial processes. Converting lignin into valuable chemicals or biomaterials requires a thorough structural characterisation of depolymerised products. This non-targeted analysis method involving 2D liquid chromatography and high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry uses SIRIUS in versatile ways to unravel the complex structures of depolymerized lignin.

Franziska Hufsky 2024-02-01 2 Comments

Discoveries

Potential risk of impurities in pesticides: Elucidating structurally related impurities using SIRIUS

Thiacloprid is a first-generation, widely used, neonicotinoid insecticide. Its persistence in the environment and potential adverse effects on human health have raised significant concerns. Elucidating the impurity profile of pesticides is crucial for assessing their environmental impact and potential risks, and setting acceptable limits for impurities. Using enhanced molecular formula identification with SIRIUS, researchers demonstrate an approach for identifying structurally related impurities in pesticides.

Franziska Hufsky 2023-09-11 No Comments

Discoveries

Green silver: Unveiling the role of biomolecules in plant-based nanoparticle synthesis with SIRIUS

Metal nanoparticles from gold, silver, iron, copper, and others, range in size from 1 to 100 nanometers and have a broad variety of applications in computing, optics, cosmetics, food industry, medicine, and water treatment. Silver nanoparticles, known for their antimicrobial properties, are effective for remediating contaminated waters. Plant extracts are used as reducing agents for the environmentally friendly synthesis of silver nanoparticles. To improve this synthesis, identifying the biomolecules involved in the process is crucial. UHPLC-QTOF-MS and SIRIUS identified the key phenolic compounds involved in the silver reduction.

Franziska Hufsky 2023-06-28 No Comments

Discoveries

A liverwort under stress: compound classification with SIRIUS to detect metabolic shifts

Liverworts are chemically diverse plants with unique cell organelles responsible for the synthesis and storage of specialized metabolites. Untargeted metabolomics was used to analyze the metabolic stress response of liverworts without isolating individual metabolites. SIRIUS classified the affected compounds, and helped to map the biochemical pathways of the unique stress response of liverworts compared to vascular plants.

Franziska Hufsky 2023-03-31 No Comments