Mucuna pruriens, or velvet bean, naturally produces L-DOPA, the precursor to dopamine and the primary compound used to manage symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. When neurons lose the ability to produce dopamine, patients can experience tremors, slowed movement, and other neurological symptoms when diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Most treatments rely on pharmaceutical L-DOPA, but velvet bean produces the same compound naturally.
Collaborators across UF/IFAS, alongside UF Health, are developing standardized velvet bean cultivars to support more accessible L-DOPA-based therapies. The project was initiated in collaboration with neurologist Dr. Michael Okun of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases, helping connect the research more directly to how Parkinson’s disease is studied and treated. Researchers are also exploring how it is processed within the body to better understand how the crop might contribute to treatment approaches, including regions where access to conventional medications is limited.
“Velvet bean produces unusually high levels of L-DOPA compared to most other plants,” said Dr. Jeongim Kim, associate professor of horticultural sciences and Biochemical Genetics Lab lead. “We want to understand how that compound is made and how its production is regulated.”
By uncovering the biological pathways that control L-DOPA production, the findings will be used to better understand how plants synthesize compounds that influence human health, and how those pathways might eventually be improved.
Cross-Disciplinary Research
The project brings together expertise across multiple disciplines. Dr. Kelly Balmant focuses on genomics and gene expression, while Kim’s lab studies the metabolic pathways that regulate compounds such as L-DOPA. Dr. Guodong “David” Liu examines cropping systems and agricultural management to understand how growing conditions influence production.
Additional collaborators include Dr. Adegbola Adesogan, director of the Global Food Systems Institute, and Dr. Greg Hudalla from the Department of Bioengineering, who are helping expand the project’s scope into food systems and biomedical applications.
To understand how genetics, environment, and cultivation practices shape L-DOPA levels in velvet bean, a global collection of velvet bean cultivars, from Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the United States, was assembled and is now being evaluated at the UF/IFAS Plant Science Research and Education Unit in Citra, Florida.
Early observations suggest that content levels vary significantly depending on the variety.
According to Balmant, assistant professor of horticultural sciences, some accessions produce very small amounts of L-DOPA, while others produce extremely high levels. Her team is working to sequence the velvet bean genome and evaluate a global germplasm collection to identify genetic traits linked to higher production across varieties. Because velvet bean lacks the advanced genomic resources available for major crops like corn or soybeans, this work is helping connect field observations, such as high L-DOPA levels, to the genes and biological pathways that control how the compound is produced.
The work also isn’t only about boosting one beneficial compound. Collaborators are equally interested in traits that affect handling and adoption. Velvet bean pods are known for irritating hairs that can cause severe itching when touched, one practical reason the crop hasn’t become a mainstream food in the United States. “It’s a trait that we want to take out,” Balmant said, noting that breeding or gene editing could eventually help reduce barriers to cultivation and harvest.
At the same time, Kim is also looking beyond velvet bean as an alternative option. Because velvet bean isn’t widely consumed in the United States, her Biochemical Genetics Lab is exploring whether the project’s insights could be used to boost the small amounts of naturally occurring L-DOPA in plants people already eat, such as fava bean or soybean, bringing them closer to what velvet bean can produce.
Adopting a Food is Medicine Approach
While Kim is exploring those longer-term possibilities, the core of the team’s work remains focused on velvet bean itself. Because the crop is already grown in many regions, their research examines whether velvet bean could serve multiple functions at once, supporting soil health while also producing pods that contain useful amounts of the compound. Understanding how genetics, environment, and crop management influence those concentrations is central to the project. If researchers can identify cultivars that consistently produce higher amounts under real farming conditions, velvet bean could potentially function as both an agricultural cover crop and a plant-based source of L-DOPA, advancing new possibilities for food-based approaches to supporting human health.
According to Dr. Md Jahidul Islam Shohag, a biological scientist working with Liu’s research program, the project aligns with a broader interest in how agriculture can contribute to human health.
“Researchers found that velvet bean contains similar levels of L-DOPA to what is used in treatments for Parkinson’s disease,” Shohag said, and translating that natural compound into a reliable food or medicinal source requires deeper scientific understanding.
Concentrations vary widely among velvet bean genotypes, and Shohag noted that environmental conditions, including soil fertility, temperature, season, and plant maturity, may all influence production. Because the compound contains nitrogen, researchers are also considering how soil nitrogen availability and plant uptake affect outcomes in the field. While these environmental factors play a role, early observations suggest that genetic traits may have a stronger influence, highlighting important genotype-by-environment interactions.
To accurately compare varieties and understand how environmental conditions influence L-DOPA levels, researchers must be able to measure the compound precisely.
Max Munro, a Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (PMCB) student and research fellow in Kim’s lab, is helping develop methods to extract and quantify it in plant samples using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The technique allows researchers to separate compounds within plant extracts and determine how much is present in each sample.
Another challenge is bioavailability, how efficiently the human body absorbs the compound from plant tissues. Like many plant foods, velvet bean contains both beneficial nutrients and “anti-nutritional” factors that may interfere with absorption. It is important to understand not only how much a bean contains, but how much ultimately becomes available to the body.
This is especially important during treatment. Patients consume L-DOPA, a precursor to dopamine, which first passes through the digestive system. For it to be most effective, L-DOPA needs to remain intact long enough to enter the bloodstream and into the brain, so that it can be converted into dopamine where it is needed.
Researchers are exploring whether naturally occurring compounds in foods, such as those found in blueberries or onions, may help regulate this process by directing where and when it is broken down. These foods contain bioactive compounds that may slow the enzymes responsible for breaking down L-DOPA too early in the stomach, allowing more of it to actually reach the brain. The team is beginning to investigate whether combining velvet bean with these foods could improve its effectiveness.
“Human biochemistry and plant biochemistry are deeply connected,” said Julia Ball, also a student in the PMCB program, whose research highlights the close relationship between plant biology and human health. “When we improve biochemical processes in plants, we can also improve human health.”
Future Impact and Application
For now, the project remains in its early stages. Researchers are still attempting to determine which velvet bean cultivars produce the highest concentrations and how environmental conditions influence those outcomes. The team is evaluating multiple genotypes with different growth cycles, yields, and chemical profiles, important factors when considering how the crop might fit into real agricultural systems.
Long-term possibilities include breeding improved velvet bean varieties, reducing traits that complicate harvest, lowering anti-nutritional factors that affect absorption, and examining post-harvest methods that preserve stability. Another direction is applying insights from velvet bean to improve other legumes that are already common in diets around the world.
For Munro, the project’s potential impact is part of what makes the work especially motivating.
“A lot of science can feel like a search for knowledge just for its own sake,” he said. “But with this project, there’s a direct connection to helping people. There’s a real link to alleviating human suffering, and that makes the work feel especially meaningful.”
By combining plant genetics, analytical chemistry, cropping systems research, and nutrition science, the velvet bean collaboration reflects a growing recognition that the future of health may be rooted not only in clinics but also in the crops we grow and study. The work that is currently unfolding across IFAS has two complementary directions: improving velvet bean as an agricultural and nutritional source of L-DOPA, and understanding how diet and biochemistry influence how that compound functions in the human body as a treatment for Parkinson’s.
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