Abstract
The observation that upon elicitation cell suspension cultures of Eschscholtzia california showed a decrease of dihydromacarpine with a concomittant increase of macarpine led to the discovery of a novel enzyme which catalyzes the oxidation of dihydrobenzophenanthridines in the presence of oxygen. The enzyme was enriched approx. 70-fold. It has a pH-optimum of 7.0, an isoelectric point at pH 8.8, molecular weight of 56 kD and shows a high degree of substrate specificity. The enzyme obviously catalyzes the terminal step in the formation of benzophenanthridine alkaloids containing methylene dioxy substitutions in rings A and D.