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Image for: PNAS: How Poisonous Plants Protect Themselves from Their Own Weapons


Young millet plants contain large quantities of dhurrin, a cyanogenous glycoside, which leads to the elimination of prussic acid when the plant is injured. The plant protects itself from self-intoxication by converting the prussic acid to cyanoalanine, which is again converted to the useful amino acids aspargine and aspartic acid by way of the nitrilase hetero-complex. Older plants will decompose dhurrin themselves, but in a way that does not eliminate any prussic acid.
Young millet plants contain large quantities of dhurrin, a cyanogenous glycoside, which leads to the elimination of prussic acid when the plant is injured. The plant protects itself from self-intoxication by converting the prussic acid to cyanoalanine, which is again converted to the useful amino acids aspargine and aspartic acid by way of the nitrilase hetero-complex. Older plants will decompose dhurrin themselves, but in a way that does not eliminate any prussic acid.

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