Psychoactive mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe have immense cultural value and have been used for centuries in Mesoamerica. Despite the recent surge of interest in these mushrooms due to the psychotherapeutic potential of their natural alkaloid psilocybin, their phylogeny and taxonomy remain substantially incomplete. Moreover, the recent elucidation of the psilocybin biosynthetic gene cluster is...
Abstract Psychoactive mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe have immense cultural value and have been used for centuries in Mesoamerica. Despite a recent surge in interest in these mushrooms due to emerging evidence that psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound, is a promising therapeutic for a variety of mental illnesses, their phylogeny and taxonomy remain substantially incomplete. Moreover, the...
Abstract Psilocybin is a psychoactive compound with clinical applications produced by dozens of mushroom species 1 . There has been a longstanding interest in psilocybin research with regard to treatment for addiction 2 , depression 3 , and end-of-life suffering 4 . However, until recently very little was known about psilocybin biosynthesis and its ecological role. Here we confirm and refine...