GordoTEK
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Breakthrough in psilocybin production (new psychedelic bacteria)
🕑 Added 2019-10-05 15:44:11 +0000 UTCThis research hasn't even officially been published yet, but will be in December (in the journal Metabolic Engineering). Researchers at Miami University have successfully modified harmless E. coli bacteria to produce psilocybin. Many people do not know this, but producing synthetic psilocybin is complicated, time consuming, and expensive. If psilocybin is ever approved for medical use, with current technology pharmaceutical grade psilocybin would cost approximately $40-60 per dose ($2/mg). This also makes research with psilocybin more expensive.
Researchers from the Hoffmeister group recently identified the gene sequences in psilocybe cubensis mushrooms that are responsible for the biosynthesis of psilocybin. The Miami University researchers were able to leverage this knowledge to modify E. coli bacteria resulting in genetically modified versions of the bacteria that produce psilocybin. Through much work and tweaking, isolation, and optimizations, they were able to identify a strain and process that can produce a substantial quantity of psilocybin (over a gram per liter). This could potentially lead to industrial scale production of psilocybin at very low cost.
Who knows, maybe one day even hobbyists at home will even be using such bacteria. I always wanted my own CRISPR machine ;)
Comments
GordoTEK
The consensus opinion is that the strain does not really make a whole lot of difference as far as the experience goes (strains are mostly just marketing hype) although I don't know that anyone has rigorously studied that or put it to the test. The biggest factors influencing an experience are set, setting, and dosage. Even with identical species and dosage, any given trip by the same person can be wildly different depending on set and setting. It is almost impossible to test the impact from species alone independent of these other factors - especially since alkaloid content varies considerably from species to species. That said, one potential negative aspect of mushroom trips is attributed ONLY to wood lover species: https://psychedelicreview.com/wood-lover-paralysis-unsolved-mystery/
Cromwell143
For me this begs the question; do you believe there is any difference between the types of trips occasioned by different psilocybin mushrooms? I.e. is there any real difference in the experience of cyensus vs cubensis if the only psychoactive compound is pscilocybin?
GordoTEK
Thanks for sharing that, I was not aware of this other development, while it is not clear which of these processes is actually more efficient or less costly, you would think not having to use bacteria to do it would be a plus. Good to know that there are at least two promising approaches for low cost mass production. One thing I found funny from the article you linked was "Notably, growing magic mushrooms for commercial use has proven difficult due to the unique attributes of the mushrooms." Cubensis mushrooms are possibly the easiest mushroom there is to grow, period. They have been commercially cultivated on a large scale in several countries where they are legal (or were legal). Hamilton Morris even visited one of the commercial growers in an episode of his Vice show (Hamilton's Pharmacopeia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton%27s_Pharmacopeia ). The problem with mushrooms is that what you grow is no where close to pure psilocybin, so a lot of additional processing is required to purify it, and no one in pharma wants to invest in a process that involves growing plants/fungi and doing extracts (too slow and labor intensive).
Joel Rosenblum
Thank Gordo. I don't think Psilocybin is difficult to produce in the lab anymore since 2017 as the enzymes required have been identified and it looks like you just throw them in the pot with your 4-hydroxy-L-tryptophan and you get psilocybin... https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-half-century-psilocybin-lab.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28763571 (if you don't have access to this, it is available at http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/files.php?pid=490463&aid=60873 ) But, those enzymes are not commercially available AFAIK, so a lab would absolutely be needed to produce them like this lab did.
