Amanda L. May

Evolution of the Toxins Muscarine and Psilocybin in a Family of Mushroom-Forming Fungi

PLoS One May 23, 2013 Pawel Z. Kosentka, Sarah L. Sprague, Martin Ryberg et al. 79 citations

Mushroom-forming fungi produce a wide array of toxic alkaloids. However, evolutionary analyses aimed at exploring the evolution of muscarine, a toxin that stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, and psilocybin, a hallucinogen, have never been performed. The known taxonomic distribution of muscarine within the Inocybaceae is limited, based only on assays of species from temperate regions...